Hunting Camp

I'm proud to say I attended hunting camp this year. We camped all of about five miles up the road (which makes running home quite convenient, especially when you forget EVERYTHING). Doug gets the kids up around 4:30 and makes enough noise that I wake up and just happen to help him - even with my ear plugs in I still hear him. But its good that I get up to help because each kid has about a bazillion pieces of clothing and socks and shoes and gloves and hats.....and then has to go potty. They embark on their hunt and I go back to sleep. Its quite lovely. We then spend the rest of the day hanging out, reading, napping, and this year we took a trip over the mountain road to Leavenworth. We return and they head out again while I, the good wife that I am, prepare dinner......right after I return from running home to get all the ingredients.

Farewell, Summer

We started the summer with the building of a chicken coop What was supposed to take a weekend took a good six weeks. That's how things go around here.
We watched some softball. Usually on a cold day.
A little girl turned six.
And a boy turned eight
Doug took the kids camping. I'm a high maintenance camper and do not sleep on the ground. One of the kids even said "mommy would have come with us if there would have been a road to bring the trailer." I'm glad I've made myself clear.


The kids participated in a Cowboy-themed VBS. Doug was one of the leaders, fondly known as "Rusty Nails."
We hung out by the water.
We went blueberry picking with the cousins. Nobody came home until their bucket was FULL!



We played in the river (of course)
And those chickens finally laid some eggs!

Look What She Can Do.

Warning - these pictures suck. It was dusk and she was a moving target....

A little bit of this
And a few of these
Quickly turned into this

This Little Girl

Just turned nine

Just another day in the life

Was that supposed to hurt?

I decided today I really love Versed and Demerol. Together. With a splash of nitrous oxide. Ahhh. I found my happy place.

I went in this morning to have my wisdom teeth removed. I've spent the past two weeks hearing EVERYONE'S horror stories of how they couldn't eat for three weeks, the pain kept them up for two days straight, vomiting, spitting up blood, dry socket, infection, swollen faces....etc, etc, etc. My insurance agent even told me her story.

The worst part of this entire experience was working the night shift last night and being REALLY hungry because I didn't want to eat, then aspirate and die in a dentist office. Besides, my friend from nursing school was giving me the anesthesia and she'd feel really bad if she killed me. Which would make me feel bad. Even though I'd be dead. But back to the story.

Three teeth removed (thank you, Jesus, for only giving me three), home to sleep, then up this evening and feeling AWESOME. I think the infection I had in my mouth last week was WAY worse than this. A little Vicodin and ibuprofen, and I'm good to go.

Treehouses

We found a fun craft to do from Family Fun magazine. We built treehouses. This was So. Much. Fun! I bought what I thought to be a big bag of balsa wood and a bag of tongue depressors to go with what I thought was a ton of hot glue. We gathered the sticks for the "trees" and drilled a little hole in some scrap wood and then started gluing.



I'll admit it - its probably more my dream than my kids to have a tree house, but they're getting one anyway. I had to build a life-like model (above) so Doug knows what to build here (below). Notice the little man in the picture shooting the turkey. That was an addition from the son. But it fits around here.

Character Flaws

Not proud of this one. Just keepin' it real.

I laugh at people's pain. That's not true. I laugh at the situations that cause people's pain. I like to think of it as "seeing the humor in every situation." My husband disagrees.

So today, pretending I worked at Supercuts, I was cutting Ty's hair. I'm no pro but I can get by. Don't know what happened exactly, but suddenly there was what I like to call a "haircut malfunction," a rather short spot on the side of his head. I've seen much worse, but this was definitely a "don't go in public without a hat" kind of mistake. I gasped and then started giggling. And then started laughing. Poor Ty had a very nervous look on his face. But I couldn't control the laughter. Doug walked in and bopped me on the head for making such a TERRIBLE (and I do mean terrible) mistake. (for the record, don't take "bopped" too seriously).

All morning I giggled about the mistake and I DON'T KNOW WHY!!!! Why must I laugh at things like that!!!! Or when Doug was violently ill and barely made it home before he was hurling in the bushes outside our house. He vomits so barbarically I was certain I saw the neighbors peeking through their curtains. Naturally, I started laughing. To the point of being unable to help him because I couldn't stand up.

And then there was the time I was in a dark theater with my sister, sister-in-law and my brother who had stepped out for a moment. When he returned, the three of us girls watched as he walked past us to the seats a few rows down, through the three "strangers" and sat down next to them before he realized they weren't us. (He claims its because he didn't have his glasses. Seriously?) We all started giggling. And giggling. And giggling. You know the serious part of Mrs. Doubtfire when Robbin Williams gets his kids taken away? Yeah, that's when it happened. We were laughing soooo hard, tears were streaming down our faces, the kind of stifled giggle that sounds like a cry - which was probably a good thing. I think we may have heard a "pipe down up there" from somewhere in the theater. I'm still laughing about it now.

I would tell more, but I've got to take Ty into town for some repair work.

A day in the life

Ty's To-Do list earlier this week:
1. Do schoolwork
2. Throw the Frisbee for the dog
3. Ride the motorcycle or my bike
4. Shoot my gun
5. Play on the swing
6. Make my bed


As he was taking care of #4,Aspen (the niece) was out with him. I would tell her to stand behind Ty when he has the gun, so that's exactly what she did.

Brooklyn had to get in on the fun, too. Every girl should know how to shoot.

So Sleeeepy

I just want to curl up and go to bed. Must. Outlast. Children....

I started back to work a couple months ago. It was meant to be very part time, and it is, but even that part time sometimes is too much. They called me in two nights ago so I agreed to go in from 7 pm to 1:30 am, which means I'm home by 2 and wound-down by 3. And then up again WAAAAAAY too early. I'm still feeling it. So I went back to bed this morning. Doug came in to take a nap at about 8 am and I actually yelled at him to get out of the bed. What a mean wife I am. I mean, it wasn't a really loud yell or anything, but I made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would not be napping next to me and trying to warm up his cold feet on my legs this morning. He left. And I snored on.

We headed up the road to ski today. Ski on ice. It totally sucked. We ended up ditching the skis and hiking. The kids of course all had to pee, the dog was falling down the rocks, the kids were climbing up the rocks, "can I play in the puddle," "I'm hungry," "where's the water," until we turned around to head back. We could STILL SEE THE CAR when we turned around! That's how far we made it.

After that I drove the 30 minutes to town to do two lessons as all the other students cancelled for President's Day. Oh, and apparently one of the students I drove in for was cancelling, too. I just didn't know about it. :)

And then there were the playdates. My girls are friends with another family's girls, and they play soooo well together. The playdates are few and far between, so they are quite welcome when they come around. And since I was headed to town today, it was the perfect opportunity. And because they happen too infrequently, I seem to forget the after-the-playdate attitude. I was reminded this evening at dinner.

Wow, this post seems so crabby. Just tired. Bedtime will be not a second later than 8 pm tonight. I can do it!!!

More Good News/Bad News

The Good News: On Wednesday morning I bounded out of bed, up and at 'em around 6ish, ready to greet the day.
The Bad News: I had an 8 am dentist appointment, meaning I had to leave at 7:15 to be guaranteed to be there on time.
The Good News: No wait in the waiting room. (But I must make a note there were so many people in the dentist office at 8 am. The place was packed! Who does that?)
The Bad News: Three fillings.
The Good News: My dentist is amazingly cool.
The Bad News: I pay for his amazing coolness. I pay dearly.
The Good News: I mentioned to him I was planning on piercing my nose that afternoon. So he said he could give me a long lasting anesthetic that would deaden my nose for hours.
The Bad News: I spent the rest of the day looking like a stroke patient. And I could barely drink my latte because I couldn't close my mouth around the straw. And I had lots of errands to run.
The Good News: My face was numb until I went to bed that night.
The Bad News: I still felt every. cubic. millimeter. of that HUGE needle. All the way through. It hurt like H-E-double hockey sticks.