Saturday, July 29, 2006

What a day...

We started this am doing some last minute cleaning before the new baby sitter came. Her name is Jenny. She is 13. (Brock is 11 but I don't trust him yet) We gave her the low down and proceed to the golf course. It is set in the middle of Farmland, with a few homes on the outskirts, which is why they named it Countryside. Last week my husband and I golfed the front 9 with some friends of ours and today for the tournament we golfed the back 9. We played a scramble, which is the most fun way to play. We were a team of 4 women and we all shoot off from the first Tee and you play from where ever the best shot was. It was GREAT! The weather was supposed to be hot and humid but for the start it was overcast and breezy. We could not go wrong with that weather!

We learned a lot about our neighbors, it seems quite a few of them are all realated or know someone that is married to someone else. Which would explain why so many are SO nice!

We didn't win any prizes but had some great time getting to know the neighbors, which didn't stop with the golf. We then were invited to a neighbors house with the rest of the area for a 'pre block party'. The kids Loved it since they were able to swim steady since 4pm. I just left them at 9pm and Brock and Reece were still swimming! They were having a ball. It was getting dark so Zeb and I walked home for the night. I can't believe in all this heat today and we spent the majority of it outside. We will sleep well today.

I just hope we can make up in time for our new nephew's baptism at 11 am in Oshkosh. It is kind of important, seeing as I will be the boys God Mother. Yea!!! I can't wait!

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Things you don't see everyday!

This is proof that even a 3 yr old will sit down and read if he had the right reading material.
I just had to take this picture, he was so cute sitting all by himself looking through this book.


I have been slacking in the exercise dept, so I took the kids out to high cliff since Saturday was a beautiful day to bike, at least up in central to northern WI in some spots. We have been very much missing any and all rain around here. It stinks. All of our lawns are so sad looking. I broke down and watered it last week Sunday and Tuesday we got a thunderstorm, FINALLY! It always seems to miss us.
Anyway, we had started out parking down below and riding to the top... er... walking to the top. I didn't make it very far at all, before walking. Again I have been a slacker. We always go through the trails and over to a tower that you can climb up and get an excellent view. The kids were pretty tuckerd out and were whining about having to climb the tower, but being the mean mom that I am I dragged them up it anyway. I told the kids to be quite because there was a wedding at a nearby shelter going on as we got there.

After we left the park I had the kids was the car since I was going to take them to a Drive-In Movie Theater to see Monster House and Click. We had to get their early enough since they only allow the first 300 cars. They open at 6:30pm and we were there at 7:15 and we were car number 30, but I think they filled up. We brought blankets and the Electronic Sorry game. We didn't have supper so we got a pizza from there. I had limited funds and they only accept cash. We had to split sodas all night. Later we got a tub of popcorn and some fifty cent bags of peanuts. I didn't have soda at home or I would have brought some.

That was a super fun family night. They had volleyball and basketball set up just under the screen so while you waited you could spend some family time together. We set out one of the many blankets on the lawn behind our SUV. We parked it backwards so we could lay down in the back. I really was expecting more mosquito's but I didn't have a single one!

Both would good movies, Duner was really bummed since he had to work and wanted to see both of these movies. He called me twice that night from work. I think he wanted me hold the phone to the speaker so he could listen too. ?? Who calls someone they know is going to be at a movie???

We finally made it out at Midnight last night and Zeb was already asleep. He didn't make it past the 2nd movie.

Bright and early I was awaken by Duner. The dogs started to bark and he went to check it out and this is what we saw.

Apparently the dogs don't like Hot Air Ballons.
It was a few house's away. It was close enough for the people to yell "Good Morning" to us. Again, at 6:30 am!
I don't think they were trying to land. Either they were practicing or waiting for a second balloon that showed up a few minutes later. They didn't land, but they bounced along the ground in the second picture.















Today I also went for my consultation for my Monday Morning Makeover. I will save that for another post.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Fun in the Fast Lane

What a great Idea! My work got together and had a pot luck and went to a local mini golf/ go Kart place that will be shut down in 10 days. They will be demolished and doesn't sound like they will be rebuilding, since they are selling off their go karts. Bummer.
Reece finally was able to ride by himself this year. Last fall, we attended a function with our realtor and Reece was just UNDER the height requirement. Happily, he was able to race with the big boys, if you want to call them that. Who knew the adults would get in just as much trouble if not more!!!! They have a switch that will shut down the motor temporarily if you are too reckless. That happened to more adults than kids! Everyone was out to get the 'Dr' of the group. Dr Al.
Duner took Zeb who LOVED it! My manager even gave us some tickets that her kids didn't want. My kids loved it. I have to work on my kids being more greatful and indroduction to others. They lack some major manners and eye contact. Well it was a busy night already and now I have to try to get some sleep.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

A short one...

You Are 28% Control Freak
You have achieved the perfect balance of control and letting go.
You tend to roll with whatever life brings, but you never get complacent.

My sister recently had this quiz on her blog about being in control. She was 36% Control Freak.

I am trying really hard to not make much noise since my husband is sleeping from working all night. Our computer is in our room and it is really hard to not use it while he is sleeping.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

One good idea turned bad...

Last night my husband actually had time off so we took the boys to see a movie, Dead Man's Chest the Pirates of the Caribbean. We had fun. Laughed til we cried, at least I did. Zeb did great til almost 9pm (1 hr and 50 min into the movie) when he wanted to go and get his blanket out of the car. Needless to say Duner and I played hot potatoe with the boy until eventually he fell asleep.

So, Today we went up to our cabin to get the pontoon and take it out for a spin with the boys. We loaded up with sub's snacks and something to keep the food cold. We took the tarp off the boat and attached everything to the car and hopped in to get going.

Suddenly Duner notice's the 'Check Gages" light on the dash board. We look and the car was overheated. We quickly shut it down and waited. While we discussed our options we ate our sandwhiches and snacks. Bummer. We had left the dogs at home, luckily we did make sure they had water when we left, but they would not be good all night outside. Not to mention our poor neighbors, what they would have to listen to. We hoped we would figure out a way to make it home.
Apparently there is a safety fan on the engine when it gets too hot kicks out radiator fluid on to the ground. We probably lost 1/2 to 1 gallon. We figured we would be out of luck trying to find a mechanic on a Sunday afternoon, so we filled it with water and turned it on. Yeah it went to half and stayed there. As we kept it running it rose slightly but that was since we sat still. Ok, so the plan we figured was to keep moving and we could make it home. We turned off the car, unloaded the pontoon boat, covered it back up, loaded our cooler back in the car and took off. We figured at the very least we did have our cell phones and Duner's Nephew Mike, said if we needed to we could call. He just happened to be up there at the time, which worked out well.

So we headed home. I watched the gages for about 5 miles and then just periodically the rest of the drive. We didn't take the normal way we take home since we wanted to avoid the traffic lights.

We made it home safe and sound, all fingers and toes.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

They Survived

The boys seem to have survived camp with only minor injuries... mainly Brock. He managed to slam his pinky finger between to rocks. It is still pretty purple considering it happened on Tuesday.
One of the first things he says to me is 'Mom, I have worn this shirt now for 5 days!'
Impressive isn't he? And the shorts? He was wearing the same shorts I droped him off with. He said he did wear one other pair while he was up there. Hmmmm.
Reece appeared wearing the same shirt I left him with on Sunday complet with the nametag. He had changed to jeans. He hadn't been wearing the same clothes, since Brock saw him in a purple shirt yesterday. As soon as Zeb saw him it kicked in high gear and ran to him. Reece was pretending to be hiding behind a tree. As soon as we got in the car the kids were hitting me up for Mc Donalds or Burger King. Later Reece said "Come on mom Just think of all those pennies in your purse just waiting to be spent." It was a new phrase, I am sure he was dying to use. He sent me a letter but I just got it today in the mail. They both loved it and want to do it again next year. Yeah! One more week with out them!!!
Zeb survived the 6 hr + ordeal. It was a 3 hr trip one way.
I think he is glad his brothers are home.


Now comes the unpacking... better get going.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

A rare one

This is a picture of my husband, his brother and nephew all doing their part to clean up after supper. It was the only time they did this. We had to get a picture of it. Cory is such a worker, he didn't even waste time looking at the camera.
My husband works with his nephew and people are always coming up to him and asking if his son or brother works there. Apparently they look alike.
Hmmmmm.
Maybe...

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Up North Part 3.... The end...

After the boys where done golfing I learned they spent some extra time playing a dice game called Ship Captain Crew. Apparently it is very fun. I am glad some people were having fun....

Uncle Ron tried to talk me into asking Bonnie to go to the local Casino. I said sure, but when I found out the boat was working I really wanted to go out on the boat. He was sulking about it when we left. Duner, Zeb, Mike and I headed to Anderson Lake to try out the boat for the first time this year. I love how easy our boat is to get on the trailer and off. Mike was somewhat distracted with some sunbathers that were on a nearby dock. (FOCUS MIKE, I thought) but we did well.

Just as we were heading out on the water a storm warning was issued. It seemed a storm was heading just north of us. The sky seemed ok yet so we picked a spot and started to fish. After an hour and a half we managed to get a tiny little blue gill and then we started to see lighting... Needless to say we decided we were done. The wind just began picking up as we got off the lake and headed home.

Back at the cabin my in laws had just shown up with their friend Cheryl. Cheryl and her husband Ron used to run a Karaoke business, but Ron passed away in Spring. She brought all her equipment with her and my father in law Karaoke king and Uncle Ron, the prince had fun all night. We were the responsible bunch that night. We just sat around the fire, Zeb was asleep by 10 pm.

Tuesday, The 4th of July, a parade always goes by the front of the cabin. We have front row seats. It maybe has 20 floats tops, but they throw some candy (Zeb made a steal) and spray some water. This year I guess they didn't want the water so much, but they still had it. I think that is the best part. They also walk around with tickets for free. Every child gets a ticket. At the end of the parade you walk down to the baseball diamond and wait for you number to win a free bike. It is sponsered by the local businesses. Eack one buys a bike. They had 80 to give away. Brand new. We of course had no luck. But we only had one ticket, since the boys were at camp.

We always have a big feast after the parade and this year we got to leave without cleaning up.
:]
The in laws were staying one more day, so we didn't have to make sure it was spotless before we left. Yea!

Now back to realty...

Up North part 2

So Reece spent some time with his friend playing with remote control boats and a paddle boat that his uncle owned. After he got back we did some fireworks. One of the best was one called Parachute. It shot up parachutes up in the air and the older boys tried to see who could grab them. Zeb knew to stay away or be trampled. One of the fireworks was one that shot off exactly 100 rounds in a row. I hated it. I counted each noisy round that went off. Yep, exactly 100. Apparently we got our monies worth. Bummer.

When the excitment was calmed, we headed inside (away from the nasty mosquitos) and Brock, Duner, Shannon, Mike and Cory all played Rummy 500. Or as Reece likes to call it Romy 500.
Reece came in an fell asleep right away. I sat by Zeb for a little while til he was also asleep and went to bed.

The next moring we had left over venison steak, onions, mushrooms, peppers and potatoes from the previous night with eggs. It was great!

We tried to get a bit more done on the new garage door and then it was time to head out to drop off the boys at camp. They are spending the week at a Bible camp called Lake Ellen. Brock was so excited but Reece didn't know what to expect. On the way up there we took the same road that I used to take to get to LLBC, that was the Bible camp I went to growing up. I noticed that it seems the same stretch of road was being worked on the last time I was on that road. Only now it is almost 20 years later.

When we got to camp, where it was 86 degrees, we had to register, got the cabin assignments and signed up Reece to go horseback riding. Brock didn't know if he wanted to go yet. Reece has a cabin with about 12 other bunks. His cabin in one of the closest to the boys bathroom. Yeah! He had to check it out and said, 'Mom, those are actually really nice bathrooms!'.
After dropping off Reece's stuff we went over to where we had to catch a bus that would take us to Brocks 'Tee Pee'. Yes, he is staying in a huge tee pee this week. It has bunk beds all around the walls and room on the top bunk for storage. He is rather far away from the nice bathrooms and much to his disappointment has.... gulp....
A PIT TOILET!!!! ARRRRRRGH!
When we left he was assuming the scared position. He was terrified of the toilet. I think Reece was almost jealous up until that point. We had to get back on the bus so we gave Brock a hug and quickly jumped on the bus. After the longest ride there in the bus, due to the insane 4 x 4 abilities of the bus, hairpin curves and the MOST uneven terrain I have ever had in a bus, it was the shortest ride back. (???) I don't know how that worked... Even one the other parents commented how quick the ride back was.
We headed over the registration area and said goodbye to Reece. He seemed ok. Zeb was a different story. He did NOT want to leave them there.
We gave Reece a hug and said goodbye. He actually hugged back. Normally he pretends to not like it but I think he was a bit scared. I hated to leave them so quickly, but actually we spent 75 minutes there. It seemed so quick.

When we returned to the cabin Zeb had just fallen asleep. The trip was 2 hrs,but he was awake for 98% of it. But he woke up when we got to the Cabin and had to get him out of the car.

We finished the garage door and tried to get the motor started. We put the battery back in and got the keys from the cabin. I was thinking.... 'Ok here we go, this will only take 2 hrs....'

It started in 4 tries!

Yeah! It was late when we got it started so we just headed inside made supper and had a fun game of Rummy (or Romy) 500. We consumed some beverages and headed to bed. It was pretty nice not have kids say "Can we light the fire?' or 'Can we roast Marshmallows?'.

The next day was Monday. Duner had plans to go golfing at a nearby golf course called Black Bear Trail. It was hit by hail on Saturday that had rolled through so they were giving discounts.
Duners Uncle Ron and Aunt Bonnie stopped up and Duner, Ron, Cory and Mike all went golfing.

I watched Zeb and baby Gage, and tried to entertain Bonnie. She can be a difficult person at times and she wasn't happy that Ron lied to her and told her that her brother Randy (my father in law) would be there in the A.M. So....from 9-3 we looked at each other and made small talk. She never had children of their own, but I guess wanted some just never worked out that way.
Like I said... some times God has a plan...
Gage was a great Baby. He can't sit still for anything. Feeding time is like target practice. His mom is nursing him, so I think he is used to it a certain way at times, but when she works he does get to do some feeding but most of the time it's Mom. It was neat because you could just tell he is starting to see better. He smiles back at you and likes to talk. Duner asked me if having Gage around made me want to have more kids. I said 'NO! I like to play and give away for a change, not be on the recieving end of the deal'

More later....

Up North part 1

We just returned from a busy weekend at the cabin. We left Saturday early and brought the dogs, a new canopy for the pontoon boat, and a new garage door. We had a trailer LOADED. We also brought a umbrella for shade, my bike and Zeb's tag a long, just in case. We thought we would have lots of room when we left. Ok, so we were wrong...

We arrived and our nephew was cutting the lawn, Duner started up the othere mower up there and in no time it was done. Mike's dog, Alice was following him around the yard like a sick puppy. I got started pulling off the old canopy and started geting the new on set up, the directions weren't the bes so we ended up putting the front part of the canopy correct but the frame was backwards. After a quick fix we got the canopy where it needs to be but we haven't put the light back on it. It was so humid and sticky. We didn't even have the boat started to know it it was going to run. My newphew put the battery on the charger and we decided to get the garage door done while we were waiting for it. Soon, my brother-in-law, Cory, his wife Shannon, the dog, Chance and their new little boy showed up that AM.
Yes we had 4 dogs, mostly labs.
About 2 pm clouds startting rolling in. It was a welcomed breeze. I suppervised the installation of the door while Duner and Mike worked on it. The kids where playing in the yard and really didn't get board too much. Once I had the canopy up on the boat they had lots of fun pretending to be driving it. Reece even threw the anchor over board at one point. I could hear some horse's whinny, there are some about 3/8 of a mile down the road from us. I began to wonder if we were in for a yucky storm. Pretty soon it began to rain. It was nice! Zeb loved it. We really didn't have any lighting with it, but it came down really well. It didn't phase him in the least. After about 10 minutes, I noticed that some hail was falling, as soon as I said that it stopped. We maybe saw 5 pieces of dime sixe hail. After that the sun, came out again and the place was steaming. By 7 pm we figured we better stop and got supper ready. I was supposed to call Reece's friends mom, Jenny. We got so busy with the door, that I forgot. I also wondered why I hadn't heard it ring yet. I looked for it and found out the battery was Dead and it was sitting in my car. Our phone batteries always go dead up north quickly. We are in a very wooded area.
I managed to get the screan on to tell me I had a voice mail. I was sure it was Jenny so I brought Reece over to her Uncle's place so he could play. They have a place on a lake up there that is maybe 4 miles from our cabin. They have remote control boats that they just Love.
When we got there Jenny showed me her Mom's car. Apparently the hail storm that we got was worse than I thought. Her mom got caught in the hail storm less than 5 miles from our cabin. They were on their way up and had to pull over. They had over 6 major cracks in their winshield and big dents all over. The said they saw cars with no back window. They were very lucky. Most of the cracks were on the passenger side, where Jenny's mom was sitting. She said she grabbed a pillow from the back quick and put it over her head. They had little pieces of glass on the dashboard. I was suprised it wasn't worse.
to be continued...