Getting Down and Dirty

Guess what we did last night for fun........

Big Woops!

Saturday night.

The Girl's View:
A young teen-age girl is home by herself as her mother makes a quick trip to pick up her older sister. She is lifting weights in her bedroom.  She hears someone open the front door. She hears an unfamiliar man's voice call out.  She is momentarily frozen with fear.  She hears the man noisily walking through the house. Gripping her 12 pound weight in one hand she quickly calls her mother with the other. Whispering frantically into the phone she says, "there's someone in the house!" Just then she hears her parent's bedroom door open and shut.  Her bedroom is next. Then she hears her own bedroom doorknob rattle and the man say, "hello, hello hello".  She suddenly realizes that she knows the voice.  "It's Mr. Mitchell!", she whispers to her mother.

Mr. Mitchell's View:
Just arriving back from a quick camping trip he finds the house empty.  He remembers that Linda is babysitting for Lisa and decides to go over.  Driving up Maple street he pulls into the familiar looking house and gives Linda quick call on the phone to make sure she's there and then  heads inside.  As he enters the house he notices that Lisa and Tyler must have gone shopping as there were a lot of new items of furniture and decorations around.  He takes a quick look around and not seeing Linda anywhere thinks maybe she is upstairs with the babies.  Checking Lisa and Tyler's room first (as that is where he understood Hunter to be sleeping) he still doesn't find anyone. He then goes to check Isaac's room, but finding it locked he heads back downstairs.  He was standing in the living room when the mother walks through the front door.  The police are right behind her.

Linda's View:
With both babies asleep for the night, she pulls up a video on Netflix and sits in the kitchen watching it and crocheting.  Mike calls her on the phone. 
 
"Where are you?" he asks.
"I'm at Lisa's babysitting."
"What did you do with the car?"
"What? It's outside.  I'm here babysitting at Lisa's. Where are you?"
"I'm right outside."
"Well, Come on in!"

She looked at the front door for a minute to greet Mike when he walked in, but when he failed to show up she shrugged and went back to her movie.

Explanatory Notes:
The young girl had Mr. Mitchell as a teacher a year or two before.
Lisa and Tyler's house is an exact copy of the house 3 doors down from them, the house Mr. Mitchell actually entered.
Lisa and Linda both have had a lot of giggles over this incident.
Mr. Mitchell is not amused.

A Small Mouse Brew-Ha-Ha

Mice rank up in the top 3 of things I really really hate the most.  I've written about mice before in my blog, memories of why I'm so traumatized by them, some of the ridiculous mouse catching episodes that have happened in our household, and  nightmares I've had of them.

This little episode that I'm about to share made me laugh.  I've never had a mouse encounter that brought on the giggles before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Last night about 10:30 or so Mike and I were in the living room and we heard Little Kitty (yes that's his name, don't judge) scurrying around the dining room.  I looked over in time to see him chasing a VERY fast and jumpy little mouse. 

I immediately get a tense sick knot in my stomach and Mike goes into hunter mode.  He puts Oscar out on the deck so that he doesn't cause more problems and goes out to get my little clamper tool.  This is the kind of tool they use to pick up trash in the park. I use it to get eggs out of the nests.

Meanwhile Little Kitty is having a great time watching the mouse run and jump before he catches it and lets it go.  I am standing on a chair under instructions from Mike to "watch the mouse". (Not my favorite job.)

Mike comes back in and starts building a barricade around the mouse with boxes.  I'm thinking the whole time that I've seen that mouse jump and those boxes aren't nearly high enough, but I wisely keep my silence as Mike is kind of throwing chairs and stuff out of his way.  I can tell he is in no mood for my helpful observations.

Suddenly the mouse darts down the wall and past the "not quite complete" wall of boxes and tries to hide in the other corner.  Mike very politely :) asks me to get him a large towel.  I grab one and toss it to him which he immediately throws over the mouse and proceeds to squeeze down on it.  I can't watch but look the other way while visions of mouse innards soiling my towel which I've determined will go straight into the trash.

That wily mouse manages to escape and runs back into the original corner where he is now corralled by not very tall boxes.

This is the point where, I believe, Mike loses his mind.

"Get me some spray."

I'm not sure I heard him right, but hand him the water bottle that we use to punish Oscar for barking.

"Not water, something that will kill the mouse."

What?  I really don't think that will work and try to voice my concerns about that method of annhialation, but am immediately reminded that Mike is not in a mood to hear it.

He goes into the laundry room and comes out with a can of Raid.  I can't help myself.  I say, "that's not for mice, that's for insects.  And I don't want my whole house to smell like Raid. (because I know Mike, and I know he would have emptied the entire can onto the mouse.)  He looks at the can briefly and tells me to go get a can of starch.  WHAT?  I'm thinking to myself I have corn starch, but that doesn't come in a can. I don't use spray starch anymore, is that what he wants?  And WHY?????? Is he going to starch the mouse?  I say that I really don't think that will work, and he says "it works on bees and wasps. I retort "bees and wasps have WINGS that the starch stiffens making them immobile.  MICE DON'T HAVE WINGS!!"

I'm starting to get the giggles.  Mike looks so exasperated at me and says "I'M JUST TRYING TO DO SOMETHING!" (I don't think he appreciated the eyebrow raising or half smile I was giving him.)

I stayed in the kitchen keeping my eye on the mouse while Mike went into the bedroom.
He came back with ............. wait for it..............................hairspray.

I can't help it and snort out a little guffaw.  Mike whips his head around to give me a glare.  I immediately sober right up.

Then he hairsprays the mouse, uses my little gripper tool to pick it up and calmly carries it out the back door.

Hairspray.

Who knew.

Bear Adventures

This fall right before Halloween, David was here with his family, so I decided our family needed to go to Bear World. I wasn't sure if I could get them all to go, but I didn't worry too much about it.  I just thought whomever would like to go, can.  And I would pay for the whole thing.

I decided to take them all on Saturday, the last weekend of their season.  I happened to hear on the radio that you would get a pretty good discount if you went during their last couple of days, so I told the fam......

I knew David and Emily and their boys would want to go and I was fairly certain that Joni would want to take Ledger. Beyond that I wasn't sure if anyone would bother.

Boy was I surprised!  Lisa AND Tyler came (I was kind of surprised about Tyler) Joni, and her 2 little kids, and shockingly, at the last minute, Mike and Andy decided to also go. (We really felt badly that Abby, David and Asher were not in town and therefore unable to come.)

We piled into 2 cars, both filled to the gills.  As the 2 cars play a part in my little story I have to tell you who was in each car.

Car A:
David's Explorer with David driving.
Also inside: Emily (front seat) Sorren and me in the middle seat, and Nathan and Zach in the back.

Car B:
Joni's car, with Joni driving. 
Also inside: Mike (front seat), Andy, Ledger, London in the middle seat, and squishily seated in the very back, Lisa and Tyler


We arrived at the gate  with Car A in front.  I was quite impressed with the lady who sold us the admittance tickets.  I told her I was paying for both cars.  She asked how many people total and the ages of each.  She worked her magic and we all got in for less than a hundred.  I was amazed.

She told us to go ahead and drive through the animals and that we could go as many times as we wanted until 5:00.  Having never been there before I wasn't really sure what she meant, but we headed through the gate.

It was pretty awesome!  It was so fun to see the white elk and buffalo, all the deer and other animals just lounging around. In our car (Car A) Sorren was so excited!  We let him get out of his carseat so he could stand up next to the window and really look. He kept making really cute little growly noises.  Nathan and Zach seemed to also love looking around and commenting on the animals.  It would have really been a fun relaxing time, but David happened to notice, as soon as we drove through the animal gate, that he was almost out of gas!

Meanwhile back in Car B they were having their own kind of fun. I wasn't actually IN car B so I'm just related the facts as I heard them.  Ledger was also let out of his carseat, I presume so that he could also have a closer look.  He promptly began to climb all over the place, including the front seat.  Mike was starting to get agitated because of Ledger's acrobatics.  At one point in time Ledger was actually climbing around on the dash in front of Joni, the driver.

In Car A we finished driving past the tamer animals and then proceeded through another more secure gate, (which kind of reminded me of the entrance into Jurassic Park) into the bear enclosure.  It was very exciting to see bears everywhere we looked.  They had lots of little "caves" for them, but mostly the bears were out in the sun watching us as we drove past.  I guess there were signs all over showing which way we were to drive, but at one point we saw a great big bear ambling across the next road over, so we skipped an entire loop to drive directly over to where the bear was to have a closer look.  The entire time I'm thinking in the back of my head "this would not be a good place to run out of gas, but I'm sure we're okay".

Meanwhile, back in Car B Ledger also got very excited about all the bears and wanted to take a closer look.  He kept trying to open the car door to do just that.  Mike was pretty calm about that little development. Just kidding.

When we finished driving through the bear enclosure I was kind of surprised to see that there was a kind of amusement park with activities and a petting zoo up ahead.  I had no idea that was there.  I was ready to stop and check things out when we got a phone call from Car B.  "We're going around again cause we didn't see everything."  And I could see that they were already heading through the gate back into the animal enclosure.  Without a second's hesitation David put Car A into gear and we were through the gate right behind them.  It was only after we went through the gate that I remembered, we were out of gas!

The second time around was pretty similar to the first with 1 major difference.

There was a Bear World truck right in front of us, with the back full of paying customers, that kept stopping for long periods of time while all the people in the back threw out food to the bears.

 This time Car A kept speculating about if we ran out of gas who would come first, Bear World employees with a gas can or hungry bears wanting a human snack.

Car B was having there own excitement.  Since the bears were all being fed they were out on the road and surrounded our cars.  Ledger thought this was an extremely good time to see one up close and personal and actually opened the door!  Mike was very calm. Ha. Ha. Ha. His agitation rubbed off on Joni who tried to escape from the herd of bears by putting her foot on the gas pedal.  She's pretty sure she might have run over a bear toe or two.

All's well that ends well, though.  We made it out of the bear enclosure without running out of gas (Car A) or getting eaten by a bear (Car B).

This time we actually did stop and enjoy the fun at the petting zoo.  A few of us used giant slingshots to catapult potatoes at some targets out in the field, a straw maze was run,  animals were petted in the petting zoo, rides were ridden in the amusement park.

It was a very fun outing.  I can't wait to do it again next year.  This time I'm going to ride in Car C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little of this and a little of that.

 

People are so nice.  When you have a baby they bring you food. Sometimes the food is awesome!  I love it when you get a meal that looks like something your mom would make for you. 

Good old comfort food. 

 

It's probably not the greatest idea to try out a new recipe for the first time and then announce that fact when you take the "first-time-you've-made-it" food to someone you're trying to help.

Although you put a lot of effort, resources and thought into this meal,

maybe, just maybe,

it would have been better to use the old tried and true Shepherd's Pie, or Lasagna.

 

Then maybe, just maybe,

the recipient of all your hard-cooking-work

wouldn't have to guess as to the edibility of the food in question.

 

 

Is that melted saran wrap?

 

 

Late Saturday afternoon I got the phone call.

"Mom, can you babysit?"

I loved that phone call.

Ledger and I had a great time.  I threw a sheet over the play mat and made him a tent.  He loved it and kept going in and out

in and out.

 

 

Grandpa took him for a stroller ride and  I fed him dinner and put him to bed at 7:30,

per his mama's instructions.

 

I told Grandpa to listen for him because I was off to buy a pop.

When I got back home I was greeted by a smiling happy Ledger, playing with his Grandpa.

"He was crying." said Mike, sheepishly.

 

Ledger bought himself another hour. 

I put him back to bed at 8:30 and he fell asleep immediately.

 

 

 

Andy tries really hard to ignore Ledger.  His tough guy image won't allow him to show his softer side to a baby.

Ledger doesn't know this about Andy.

Ledger just LOVES Andy and

smiles at, climbs up on, watches,

and does his best to win Andy over.

From the looks of things, I think Ledger is winning.

 

 

It's been hot here.  Joni has taken Ledger to the splash park a couple of times.  Today Lisa and I stopped by to see the fun.  Poor little guy has such tender skin that he has to wear a hat outside, but it just added to the cuteness factor. 

He had a great time!

for about 5 minutes.

 

 

I fell in love again last week.  He only weighs 8 pounds, but he's gripped my heart as tightly has he gripped his mama's necklace right after he was born.

Love you Asher!

 

 

 

Epitaphs

Other families probably don't do this, but the topic of conversation at our house is occasionally about cemeteries. This could be due to the fact that I spend a lot of time in them doing my hobby.

One particular conversation was about epitaphs. These are the little snippets that are insights into the life of the one interred. Little glimpses into what was important to them, what they were like, or what they were remembered for.

These can be humorous, like the one I read at the Rose Hill Cemetery that said,
"See, I Told You I Was Sick!",
or
"I'd Rather Be Fishing",

to solemn
"Here Lies A Good Man"

They are glimpses into what the deceased did for a living,
"A Woodman of the World"
"Teacher of All"

and to what kind of a person they were in life,
"Loved By All"
"Loving Mother, Wife, Grandmother"

Sometimes they are messages from the family to the departed,
"You Will Be Missed"
"I Love You More, ha ha, I Said It Last!"

One day I was talking with some of my kids about what I might want on my headstone after I pass. I considered something like, "I'd Rather Be Painting" or maybe, "At last I have time to Paint". We were being silly, and having a good time.

About this time Mike called me on the phone. I told him what we were doing and asked him what he wanted to have on his headstone.

Mike's big belief in life is to render service as much as is humanly possible. He is always looking for ways to help people out. When people thank him for the help he usually says,
"If I can't help you out during the week, then what's the use of going to church on Sunday?"

And so that's what he said he wants to have on his headstone.

We hung up the phone and I told the kids what dad said. We agreed that was way too long and were trying to figure out a way to shorten it. We came up with this,
"What's the Use Of Going to Church?"

Mike was not amused.

Being a Contender

For one of my Christmas presents Mike got me a membership to World Gym. I've always exercised. I walk, I hike, I bike. Mostly walking and biking. But when the temperature dips down into the negatives it just doesn't make me want to walk outside. It's not actually the cold that stops me so much as it is the icy roads. I don't want any car snuffing the life out of me cause they couldn't stop sliding.

We also have a treadmill and a Bow-flex in our basement. I know the big joke is that most people have treadmills and they are great places to hang your clothes. The truth is we've gone through 2 treadmills and have had to have them surviced and repaired multiple times. The reason? We wear them out!!!

The treadmill we have now is not broken. The belt does tend to slide to the side after a few minutes, and it makes a squeaky noise, but it's still very usable. And the Bow-flex works great! I love it.

So why did I consent to do the gym membership. Mostly it's my husband. He just can not motivate himself to use the home machines. I can understand why. When I get home from work or school I don't really want to jump on one of them either. So I decided if we both belonged to thy gym he would be better about exercising.
When we got to the gym to sign up I saw a woman on the other side. This gal had biceps!
and triceps! and a six pack! and perfect hair! And wrinkles. Hey, wait a minute. I KNOW that lady. Sure enough, before we got out of there she and her equally buff husband (who used to be my gynocologist (can you say awkward)) sauntered over and said, "so you've decided to make a New Year's resolution, huh?" She might as well have said, "so, you out-of-shape, soft-bodied mollusks have decided to get off the couch and exercise, huh?" All I could do was agree with her. ("Yes we decided to leave the primordial ooze of our low-life existence and attempt to whip our sorry butts into shape.") She does look awfully good for her/my age. It gives me hope.

Well, yesterday Mike came up with a proposal. (I knew he would)
He wants to make a contest out of it. Every time we go to the gym and work out for at least 30 minutes we get one point. You can earn 2 points a day if there is at least 8 hours between workouts. (I insisted on this because Mike tends to go overboard and will work out for 2 or 3 hours straight to catch up after not working out at all for months.)
At the end of the month the one with the most points wins 100 dollars.

Joni really jumped on this and will probably win the money every month, but I'm sure Mike will give her a run for her money. He's VERY competitive. I'll just be consistent and when they both burn out I'll cruise on by and collect the cash. *smile*
Day 1 -
Mike 1 point
Linda 1 point
Joni 1 point
Andy .5 point

Art, Slides, Cemetery, and People Watching

My poor baby. Abby came home for the weekend and was babied properly. I made her some homemade potato soup. Very yummy, and slides down swollen throats pretty easily. She moved back into her apartment last night. This morning she called and told me she was out of pain medicine and her throat still hurt very badly. I told her to call the student health center and see if she could get some more. They wanted to see her. Bad news. She had not improved at all so they put in an IV and gave her 2 bags of saline and prednisone to bring the swelling down and hydrate her. Her mono has not been kind to her, but she still has a smile on her face. What a trooper.

Yesterday Mike took me to Jackson. I heard they were having a Fall Art Festival and I was feeling the need for a quick get-away. Joni decided to come with us. Abby wanted to stay home and rest (the best thing for her).

We had a ball. We were not in a hurry what-so-ever. Every time we saw something interesting we would stop. I took a lot of photos all day long. I was trying to complete my assignment for my photo class, but I also just took photos for fun.

At the top of the Teton Pass we stopped and went on a little hike. I hiked up the hill and took some shots of Mike and Joni below. Then I took a lot of shots for my class. You can visit my other blog if you'd like to see those. I'll be posting them tomorrow.
I did see a couple of little chipmonks through the hillside plants.






Once we got to the bottom of the pass on the Wyoming side we stopped at a river and took another little hike. Here's a couple of shots of that hike.





In Jackson we visited the park where the fair was underway. It was great.


For a long time Joni and I just sat and watched people. I had to get photos. There were so many interesting characters. Everything from cowboys to high society. I'm posting them here for your gawking pleasure.























Then we went to the Snow King Resort where Joni and Mike went up the mountain on the chair lift....


....and came down the mountain riding the Alpine slide.



Right next to the resort was the oddest cemetery that I've ever seen. The plots were terraced and fenced. There were a lot of wooden headstones and the whole thing was wild and unkempt.













After we got back to Idaho we saw a truck hauling one of our potatoes out of the field.


JUST KIDDING! Our spuds aren't really that big. That truck has been sitting beside the road with his fake tater for as long as I can remember.

We were almost home when I spotted these sunflowers. As they are my favorite flower, Mike stopped and let me go snap a bunch of photos.







It was an awesome day. I needed the break so badly. I can't believe how much better I felt today.

That Year

A decade or so ago I was having a rough year. I thought to myself that everyone has a hard year once in a while and I must be having one of them.

Little did I know.

Beginning last September I have been having one of those years. For 12 months I have had the highest stress, the most problems, and the most emotionally draining experiences of my life. I think this is the year that will forever live in my memory as "That Year".

It began when a year ago my Dad took a turn for the worst and was hospitalized for 21 days in the ICU. Since then we have had everything from my Dad's death in May to threatening letters from the IRS to one of our kids being fired from 2 jobs (one his fault and one not) to Mike's city job being threatened by firing (politics), to health issues, and on and on and on.

I think you have to keep a sense of humor or you might lose your sanity. Something happened last night that I am still shaking my head over. "Did that really happen?" It was so ridiculous that I still have a hard time believing that it really happened.

It all started when Andy was fired from his night watering job. He would go set the water in all the city parks to water the grass and then go back every few hours to change them. The city's park's director (an idiot) kept getting mad at Andy for not keeping the parks green. He gave Andy 10 days to green everything up. Andy watered day and night 7 days of the week for those 10 days. On the 10th day Andy left to go put the first set on at around 10 pm. He was home again in 30 minutes very upset. He was fired because the grass was not green. Mike has been butting heads with this idiot park director for 2 years now (Mike works for recreation, but has to use the parks tools all the time) and was quite put out at the treatment Andy received. He told the mayor that in talking with some lawn-care people they stated that the grass would never green up unless it was fertilized. The mayor told the director, they fertilized, and lo and behold - the grass turned green.

Meanwhile they had hired a new night watering guy. Andy was not getting his job back. I think idiot fired Andy as a way to hurt Mike. He's kind of like that.

Now fast forward 6 weeks to the middle of August. I have the habit of going to the park at around 9 pm to walk. Mike works on the chemicals for the splash park and I walk the path, putting in my 2 miles. I was getting more and more irritated at the doofus (I call him doofus because of the ridiculous outfit he wears while watering complete with large black garbage bags tucked around his waist like an apron, rubber boots, and fishing hat on his head with a miners light on top) who waters the parks now. He was starting earlier and earlier. The parks are supposed to be open until 11:30 pm, but he was watering at a little after 9. And for some reason instead of watering the middle of the park first, he watered the edges, right on the walking path. I was dodging the spray every night!

Mike had talked to him about starting too early, but he refused to change.

Last night I went with Mike at 9:00 and started my walk. When I had made one round I noticed that doofus was circling the park in his pickup. I saw the pickup park over by the splash park and thought I was going to have to dodge sprinklers again.

I made another round, and as I approached the splash park I saw doofus heading right towards me. I tried to keep my head down and avoid eye contact but he started speaking to me. He said, "excuse me, are you going to be walking much longer?" I said I had 2 more rounds. He said, "I'll wait until you're done before I start the water if that's okay." I was very surprised and thought "hmmmmm, maybe he's not as much of a horse's heiny as I thought he was.

Wrongo!

I made another round of the park, and when I approached the splash park I saw Mike standing on the path waiting for me. I asked him what doofus said to him.

He said he couldn't repeat it.

I thought he was kidding. "No really, what did doofus say to you?"

Mike said he really couldn't repeat it because there was so much profanity in it he didn't want to shock me.

Apparently, Mike was in the chemical room, checking the water, pumps and everything else and doofus opens the door and walks in. Mike half turned around to see who was there and doofus immediately started swearing at him and yelling and said he was going to throw Mike in the pit where the pumps were (doofus is about 60, I doubt he could move Mike 6 inches). Mike said he just very calmly kept saying, "please leave, please leave". Doofus then said that Mike better not write any more letters complaining about the early watering, blah blah blah" (Apparently someone wrote a letter, not Mike, complaining about the same things we were complaining about). At one point when Mike said, "please leave" doofus said, "you just threatened me. I'm filing charges."

What? You gotta be kidding me!

Mike finally said, "if you're not going to leave, then I am."

That's when doofus decided to leave.

As he went out the door, doofus turned around and said,

(I still can't believe this)

"Do you want me to shut the door, Mike?"

Uhhhhhh, did I miss something here? Weren't you just threatening my husband with bodily harm and now you are being all Mr. Politeness?

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that Mr. idiot park supervisor sent doofus to try and engage Mike in a fight so that he could charge Mike with assault. Mike is strong and healthy and doofus is a tottering old doofus. I'm so glad Mike refused to rise to the bait.

Still, it's very disturbing. I really hope Mike quits working for the city. It's just so unpredictable now and I can't see it getting any better.