One Last Hurrah!

Dead Horse Point

Nothing stops a mother's heart like your children running along the edge of a 2000 foot cliff. It's amazing that none of us dropped dead right there on the spot. Here we are clinging to the girls in case a good strong wind comes along and blows us right off. Legend has it that cowboys corralled wild mustangs onto this butte and forgot about them. The state park sign that is posted at the view point tugs at your heart strings describing the poor horses looking on the Colorado River longing for thirst. While I feel that it was a terrible tragedy, I find it somewhat amusing that the writer would think that a horse could possibly see and know that there was a river just full of satisfying water a mere 2000 feet below. Well in any case we were careful to bring lots of drinking water for us while we hiked around the Gemini Bridges area, Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands. We had a great feasts of dutch oven cooking and Tracy made her first s'more. But you know that it has been a successful trip when you run out of beer and you get a camping ticket. I can't wait until next year!

Sobered Up!

Well I have finally sobered up since the last post. And what a long drunken stupor it was! Ok, actually it was just a summer full of fun and adventures. When it finally warmed up in June we took a trip to Topaz mountain with our good friends the Browings to collect crystals and try our hand at dutch oven cooking. It was a smashing success! We found tons of beautiful crystals and Apache Tears. We ate like kings and queens, princes and princesses! It's a good thing we followed all that eating up with a hike to the top of a mountain. In July, the kids took swim lessons and played in a junior golf tournament and won a trophy! Then the kids and I were invited to join my friend Beth and her kids to her home town of Spokane. Her parents were patient hosts with 5 kids tearing up the place and Beth was an awesome tour guide showing us all over the area including Coeur d'Alene Lake and Arbor Crest Winery. We finished off the trip by meeting Tom and Andy in Riggins, Idaho where Andy won $500 in prize money for dazzling the town with his country music. At the end of July the kids started back up in school again (darn this year round school schedule!). 4th grade for Tommie and 1st grade for Michael. August started off with my 20 year high school reunion. I wasn't going to go but Tom convinced me that it would be fun and...actually it was. Most people had gotten past the immaturity and generally wanted to know what you were up to. Then a few days later we had that country star (Andy) in our backyard to play for our friends and neighbors. The wind blew like crazy but that was all a plan to get the music to float up the canyon. I finished up August with a girls trip to Park City. We floated down the 45 degree Provo river which was pretty fun, except the part where Julie and I did a very graceful flip and we froze our butts off! Sharing a few bottles of wine and a soak in the crater at the Homestead and then later in the hotel hot tub warmed us up though. So you see I wasn't drunk all this time, well... maybe some of the time.

The Reason I Drink

Michael was picking up his cars off the family room table on Friday, cars that he had played with outside in the sand. As he picked the cars up they were leaving a pile of dirt behind. I told him he needed to clean that up. He said "you should clean it up, you're the maid". To which I promptly retaliated "I am not the maid!". And quite calmly he replied "well...you're like a maid". Anyone reading this now is cringing as they imagine the scene unfolding before them. And the possibilities were endless, stringing him up just by his toes, washing out his mouth with a whole bottle of Soft Soap, making him sleep with the chickens in the coop, forcing to him scrub the entire house with only a toothbrush and a lintroller...but I reminded myself, I asked for this...bundle of joy, and now I have it. So off to his room he went for an early night while I played games with Tommie.

Grand to be Great!

I'm about to become a Great Aunt. It's hard to imagine really, I feel... oh, I don't know about 25ish. And truth be told I don't really think I'm that great at anything. I'm a fairly decent wife, although I have my moments, I'm a good Mom but there again I have my melt downs. I know my way around the kitchen but I go through phases of really not wanting to cook at all. And I'd like to think I'm a respectable mortgage broker. But there it is, I get to be great at something, and not just once, oh no...3 times this year. Wow, I am so lucky! What will it be like, hopefully many years from now, when I get to be Grand?

The Sock Anomaly

Everyone knows the washer and dryer eat perfectly innocent, unsuspecting socks. White, black, pink, red, green ones, they have no preference. The anomaly occurs when I get fed up with the basket full of mismatched socks and decide that these poor lonely items are never going to find their mate again and toss them out. This is inevitably the time the washer and dryer then chose to give back to the community and return some of the mismatches. Is this part of some plot to make housework the first step to insanity? I think the washer and dryer is in cahoots with the dishwasher that leaves the film on all my glassware. It doesn't help that my daughter is going through a phase of wearing mismatched socks on purpose. Hey, this could work to my advantage I could just throw all the mismatched socks in her drawer and let her deal with it.

Distraction Much!

I drag myself out of bed and make sure the kids are up. Tommie is up but Michael is not, I gently shake him and say "Time to get up for school". I get his clothes ready and lay them on his bed. "Come on" I urge. Going back into my bedroom I begin to throw on my gym clothes. "Now, where is that pink tank" I begin to fold clothes from the laundry basket on the floor. "Ah there it is" the match to the sock I am wearing on my left foot. The phone rings, could I please pick up an additional kid at the bus stop today? I am back down the hall, topless of course "Did Michael get out of bed yet? Michael get up!" Back to my room, while putting up my hair, "oh yeah, pink tank" and I pull it out of the half full laundry basket. "Whew! I haven't even gotten downstairs yet!" And so it goes...I wonder if housewives in the 1950's were able to complete a task... get the kids breakfast, dressed and out the door for school, folding laundry, doing the dishes and such without being distracted by a dozen other things. I wonder if I am completely mistaken in assuming that 50 or 60 years ago, things were much simpler.

Self Sufficiency

We are but a mere a week or so away from starting our latest project. A garden. Yes, another thing to add to the daily task list. And it has been quite the investment due to the fact that we have started by flooring the selected area with a chicken wire and a gopher proof railroad tie base, next we are going to cement 4 X 4 posts and and surround it with a 9 foot deer proof fence. Fort Knox would be jealous!