20 things I learned from my week of camping

1. My tenative child is not so tentatvie when dad is the leader. They crossed trees that had fallen across the creek and I had never envisioned my little brain even attempting it but he did over and over even after he fell in!!!
2. My little brain knows how to use it in a crisis and doesn't even panic(see above).
3. Keep it Simple does apply to have a "vacation" when you are camping.
4. My princess now loves the water and virtually has no fear. She even took on the 3 foot waves in Lake Michigan.
5. Always bring benadryl.
6. Something my hubby learned the second application of sunblock is important.
7. There should be more Drive In Movie places.
8. My joker does make right choices when the pressure is on.
9. It takes 30 minutes to catch 47 fish and all day to clean them and the clothes of your teen smell horrible at the end of that day.
10. My laid back boy is just that.
11. Taking my kids to a insect safari did help them get over their fear and now they have become quite avid bug catchers.
12. I can cook over a open fire for 6 nights in a row and we won't starve.
13. You can camp with 60 other people and have your own time too.
14. My laid back child is very obedient(he was riding his float toy and daddy was pulling him around and we told him to hold the handles tight so he wouldn't fall off. Great advice until he flipped over and wouldn't let go which caused a suction effect so dad had no other choice but to grab the eyes of the floating crab and pull it and the boy straight up out of the water).
15. Walking up and down sand hills pulling a wagon is exhausting.
16. Never underestimate the tenacity of your teenager ( I was able to best him at dunking 11-4 but I was more like the karate kid at the end of the movie I won but I got my butt kicked doing it).
17. Thank goodness for family across the way.
18. When you tell your child to watch for cars before they cross the road you need to also add: bikes, scooters, runners, strollers, rollerbladers, etc...
19. Love your neighbors.
20. Curb your exuberance is a nice way for the park rangers to say be quiet at 1am!

We finally did it!!!

Today my little princess and myself went and each had 10 inches of hair cut off. We are donating it to Locks of Love and are both enjoying our new found short cuts fun and cool for these humid hot days!!! Okay due to mechanical and human error the pictures we took have disappeared which is a bummer but here is the picture I just took of her and her new do!

And the Doctor said.....

One little boy jumping on the couch,

He fell down and bumped his mouth,

Momma went to the doctor,

And the doctor said 4 little stitches and teeth that might be dead.


* sung to the song 5 little monkeys

What was that?!?!!!!

Last night at 2:30am I am awoken by something passing by my window. At first I almost dismiss it but I am sure it was a person and not a thing. Realizing my husband is not in bed I go out to him to say did you hear that outside. There is something outside and I am perty sure it is a someone. He gets a huge smile on my face and said it was me and then goes into explaining that he has set up a scavenger hunt for the kids in the morning and the first clue is by the syrup so I need to make sure I send one of the kids to get the syrup for breakfast. Needless to say the kids didn't find the clue when they were sent for the syrup so it was pointed out to them and they had a great time on there hunt for treasure. Thanks to my husband for starting our day off with fun!

I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!!!!

I hear a hysterical scream followed by, "I didn't do anything, she did it!" As my little princess comes into sight with a very red face and a scream like I have never heard from her before and I am sure she has lost a limb but behind that scream there is something almost audible and I think she is saying something about an ant. Sure enough behind those screams of hysterics is the fact there is an ant in her hair and now we are into the scream GET IT OUT!!! I am telling you I have never looked for a needle in a haystack but that would have been easier than what I was doing. I looked in that jumping head of blonde hair with the shrieks of "It is in there get it out!" for over 15 minutes and I finally say I think you gave it a heart attack from all the screaming and he died or jumped ship. However she is insistent it is there and I look some more without any luck and I say again it is gone. My little brain points out that maybe the hairats ate it and of course this doesn't convince her at all and with more screams of the fact there is an ant in her hair I begin my quest again and I do find the smallest little ant that was quite ready to be found and once again we have a happy little princess....later that day we are prepping pea pods to be frozen and my little princess comes across a little green caterpillar and says very endearingly, "look mom it so cute I need to take him outside to live." She picks him up ever so gently and takes him outside to live in our backyard. It amazes me that our little princess can be so hot and cold about the living creatures on this earth and I am ever ready to hear I didn't do anything and it is one of those small creatures frollicking in her hair near a heart attack from all the screaming.

Terminology in Our House

For all to understand the funniness of my next post I have to explain one term I use everyday and that is- hairats. My little princess hated getting her hair brushed and so I started making this a fun game by hunting for and getting rid of the hairats(tangles) out of her hair. I had to make it something she really wouldn't want in her hair and hairats was just the thing and so to this day we get the hairats out of her hair.

FUN FUN FUN

Today after sending our big joker off for his first youth conference (hope he is having fun) we went off to the zoo. Train rides, petting tortoises, spotting hundreds of tadpoles, going through the pond on the rock trail and wobbly bridge, and of course ending all the animal sightings with a ride on the carousel. This is not the end for us though we found a perfect spot to throw a blanket down and had picnic under the shade of apple trees.
What a wonderful day out but is this the end NO WAY. We go to the newest children's museum down the way and spend 3 hours exploring until dad is falling asleep on a bail of hay leaning on a cow(he woke up just before I got the picture). This is a new found treasure for us we absolutely loved the whole thing from pulling teeth the size of little legs, putting skeletons together, exploring the insides of a heart, building and racing cars, milking cows, picking veggies from a garden, figuring out how things work, the art room we won't get into the insanity of that area, changing tires on cars, washing them, driving them, seeing how a motor works, and a water area we could not get the kids away from(I am glad we saved this for the end). I couldn't beleive that after 3 hours the kids still didn't want to leave they truly loved it.
The funniest thing was at dinner we asked them what was their favorite thing they did today and there answers were: watering our garden, playing tag, going down our slide and being pushed on the swing. I am always so surprised that after a day of fun it is the simple things of home the truly love!

Getting your wisdom teeth out is no biggie, this is really OUCHIE!!!

I couldn't figure out why after having my wisdom teeth out that instead of getting better everyday suddenly yesterday evening the pain was getting worse a lot worse. SO back to the dentist I went. Apparently I have an infection in my bone. Here were my options A) rip open my sutures and inject medicine directly into the bone or B)drugs lots of them. We decide on B since I was healing so nicely. The great news is I will be sleeping all night(sorry to those of you with newborns that are reading this) which I haven't done all week! Off to Vicodinland I go!

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!

This is all I can say about getting out my wisdom teeth OUCH!!!!!! and how wise are we when we have them anyway? We actually pay someone and willingly lay there with our mouth open and let them give us shots and then pull out our teeth. Quite frankly I think I am much wiser now that they are out!

Amazed

One of my little jewels has been wanting a cell phone and after the last one was lost who knows where we have been hesitant in this request(even though it would make my life much easier). We finally a few months or so ago heard from our joker, "why can't I have one?" We will talk about it was my reply. It was decided that the ball would be sent back into his court and had 24hours to tell us 3 reasons why he should have one, he smiled and said, "I can tell you that right now." as the sentenced continued and 3 reasons why you shouldn't. I didn't realizes jaws could get that close to the floor. Of course in 24 hours we had our reasons but it truly came down to responsibility. We needed him to show us he was responsible and explained examples of how he could show us responsibility. We didn't think this was a huge request but was not accepted well and the subject was there for dropped(little did we know he was listening).
Now we will fast forward to yesterday as we are planning out the details of summer. Plans, expectations, what every one wanted out of summer vacation and then we went ahead and planned as much as was reasonably possible. As we neared the end of our calendering session I am surprised by this request from my joker, "I have been thinking about it and I would like a cell phone so could we make a chart labeled 1-100 and every time I am responsible I get a 1/2 a mark and then if I am not responsible you can take away a 1/2 a mark. Then when I get to 100 then can I have a cell phone?" I can tell you I was simply shocked because he was able to present to us a long term plan and have both needs met over time. We needed a show of responsibility over a long period of time and he would like a cell phone. Both needs met in the simple little plan. I am amazed by my children everyday but some days they leave me speechless at how amazing they are!

What I learned in my 24 hours of darkness...

1. I can cook pancakes over an open flame in the dark and not kill anyone
2. Showering by lantern is not too bad
3. I can count on family to get me out of the dark
4. We need to run preparedness drills
5. People do get irritable in a crisis
6.People do get irritable when they are hot and there is nothing you can do about it(fan, air conditioning)
7. I am glad we have a gas stove and gas water heater and (this is a doozy)
8. Consumer will let you check the status of your power outtage on line...now where are the batteries for the computer.

styrofoam

Okay the funniest thing happened on the way home from Lowes last night. We strapped on 2 pieces of (DOW) Styrofoam installation on top of the van and proceeded to drive home. As we are driving David said you would think with something on the roof of our car this guy would not be tailgating me. I am telling you no sooner did he finish that sentence the rope that was holding down the Styrofoam cut through it all and ended up in dozens of pieces all over the road. I am sure that guy wet himself as all this stuff went flying at him. Lesson to all don't tailgate and apparently don't tie blue Styrofoam to the top of your vehicle.

A Showing of Character

This morning was such a great morning started by going to the farmer's market on the search for fresh grown in the Tri Cities produce(you have to be careful I was nearly lured into to buying what I thought was yummy MI strawberries then took note of the truck full of cases of strawberries straight from California not that CA is bad just I wanted picked today or yesterday strawberries not picked last week and shipped here strawberries).
Then it was off to the soccer fields and what a great day for a soccer game not to hot with a nice breeze. I am so impressed with my soccer guy he had gotten advice when he was 8ish that the best soccer player on the team is the one that makes everyone look better and he has held true to that. Stepping up when he needs to but truly letting other players grow. He scored 3 goals today but I am more proud of the 15ish attempted assists than those 3 goals. I am amazed at the leadership skills he has honed in the last year thanks to a great coach that realized this kid knows more about soccer than I do so I will get advice from him and let him lead the team which he has with selflessness which quite honestly is a lost characteristic of most 14 year olds now a days. Today might have been his last soccer game of the season but more importantly than the game or the outcome was a true showing of his character. Love you bud!

The first of many fun summer nights I am sure!!!

Tonight we went to a Loons game and we had so much fun. If you have never went to a Loons game when BirdZerk is there you need to do it if you have young kids he is hilarious!!!! The kids loved him! Tonight was also the first nice warm night this year and we so enjoyed it! My Princess(she always does, the players love her) and My Joker caught balls or at least one was directly handed to one of them which does make the game for them. Of course the brains of the operation was on the big screen twice, the princess once and my little dancer was loved by the camera man so he was up there dancing away and the camera guy did catch him peering over the fence watching the game...how adorable! I now have 4 tired kids, one exhausted mom, one wound up pup(sorry you couldn't come with us Jasper-my fifth kid), and one missed husband/daddy!

GOTCHA FINALLY!!!

I have finally did it! It wasn't until my sons second bowl of Italian soup and many compliments that he asked what was in it and the look on his face when I listed the last ingredient as bulgar was one in a million. I finally got bulgar by him after almost 9 months of trying! Yahoo for me!!!