Monday eve

Well, A is still not home. She had soccer practice after school and still isn't home. Hmmm.

A few of us rednecks got out to the lake this weekend. My dad, T and J went out while A made candles and I worked. The guys had to stop on the side of the road and fix dad's trailer before they even made it to the lake. Then our boat wasn't getting gas because of the way something was set up and T broke something so he just took it out. At least we know it floats. Dad's boat was good after he adjusted the steering. Apparently they were going in circles. Dad reports that J loved the boat and was smiling and giggling the whole time. J reports that Bampa's boat goes fast. He hasn't seen anything yet. Wait 'til ours gets going or he rides uncle C's jet ski. I'm glad he liked it. Some of my best memories are boating.

A's candles are a mixed bag but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what one likes, the other doesn't necessarily like. I like several of them and I'm proud of her for trying. If she can perfect it a bit she hopes to sell them where I work. You go, girl!

Guess that's it for now. Oh, here's A. I must have "talked her up".

Saturday morning

Wow, time flies whether you're having fun or not. Tomorrow (Sunday) marks one year since we flew out of Haiti with J. That was quite monumental after four years of waiting to bring him home. We didn't get to Atlanta until about 2:30 a.m. on the 30th due to plane trouble and we drove home on the 30th from Atlanta (it was much cheaper flying out of Atlanta last minute than Nashville and we stayed at Mrs. H's so she got to meet J). So much has happened in a year's time and J has come such a long way. He is still very emotionally immature but there is definite improvement.

Last night there was an open house at my parent's for Mr. C from Haiti and J was playing with his best buddies and they were secret agents. He told everyone that he was "double agent, double twice" and that they looked suspicious. At least he can say that now as he used to say "suspicioush".

J put an egg in the toaster this morning. He thought it might cook faster so he spread it on a piece of bread and put it in the toaster. Sigh...we had to open the windows to air things out and now he needs to clean the toaster. I wish he wouldn't act on all the crazy ideas that enter his mind.

He calls ninja "linja". You can correct him but he goes right back to it. He also uses said and told interchangeably-"She didn't said me move or not'ing."

A is house/cat sitting. So far, so good. She called me this morning and asked how to pump gas at Wal-mart. Um, flip the thing up and pump. I think she was unsure of how to pay with cash, if you had to pay first and then pump or how it worked. Funny.

She sprained her ankle Wed. evening but it's better today and not looking so much like a "cankle" (where the calf of the leg flows right into the ankle without definition). She had some bluish coloring on the lower side of it yesterday.

I got my new contact prescription yesterday. It always costs more than they tell you up front. Why is that? I like the contacts for now. We'll see.

Mid-week

So, I ordered new contacts finally but they emailed me to let me know that my kind have been discontinued. I called my eye doc but she doesn't have any openings until Oct and I need something now. Sigh...I will have to go to someone else this time.

I have a huge bite of some sort on my leg. Fun times.

J had Mr. C (from Haiti-staying with my parents) over this afternoon and was thrilled to show him all his stuff. Mr. C reminded him how blessed he was to be here and to have the opportunities that are available to him now. J is usually pretty thankful but he does need a little reminder now and then.

We are sitting for J S tonight. E will be spending the night and I will drop her off at school in the morning. The kids are playing well together for now. Sometimes they don't play so well together. So far so good.

T is trying again to get the crazy boat running. A friend cleaned the carb and T got the rebuild kit for it so we'll see. Maybe we'll get it in the water yet before the summer is done.

A is cat/house sitting this weekend and if all goes well she will do it again for a week in Sept. Funny, my nephews in WI were cat/house sitting last weekend.

Now the kids are giving Misty stroller rides and her sippy cup. Funny.

Sigh...

Well, us rednecks didn't go to the lake today. That's all I've got to say about that. Sigh...

Lots of hormones dancing around at our house. Sigh...

A visitor from Haiti is staying at my parent's house and J asked if he could skip school tomorrow to spend more time with him, the kidsitter is sick, and J has already told me that he has a pain in his side and will not be able to go to school tomorrow. Sigh...

I still haven't ordered more contacts and there is still something very wrong with my right one. Sigh...

Today my "baby" turned 20. 20! Do you know how old that makes me feel? Sigh...but happy birthday, baby! And she didn't have to spend it alone. JT didn't have to go on his training thingy.

Tomorrow is Monday. Bring it on.

Sigh...

Life

Dexter thinks he fits on top of this box.

"I had too much tequila last night."
He is totally convinced that the new life jackets are a bed for him.

Ummm, you might be a redneck if.....

...you use the fan from a vehicle powered by a battery charger which is plugged into a power strip which is plugged into an extension cord to cool the area where you are working on a boat.

And if you hold wires in your mouth that are attached to a boat battery to see if a part works or not.

Us rednecks are hoping to be on the lake this weekend. We'll see.

Life

Yup, life is very busy. Not as busy as last week but still busy. T finally got the boat to start Sunday evening. It seems like he solves one issue and discovers one or two more. We're not surprised and had an idea it wouldn't be easy but we'd just like it to work so we can go to the lake with it. T never ceases to amaze me.

J is doing ok at school. He's already had one meltdown. He didn't have to pay much attention to the classroom teacher last year because he had packets of work each day from the ESL teacher. This year they're trying to integrate him more into the regular class and he won't pay attention. My guess is that he's never really paid attention in school. He also wants to play fall ball. We're working on getting him signed up for that. He told me that he needed a mitten so he could play baseball. I told him it's called a glove, a baseball glove. Or sometimes a mitt but not a mitten. Too funny.

A is busy with school, soccer, and friends. She's still working for Nanny and looking for a job. I came up with an idea for her this morning and if that pans out it would be a little income. She comes up with enough for gas in her car (or I should say the car we let her use) and helps some with her cell phone bill.

R's birthday is this weekend and JT will be gone on a training mission of some sort. Poor R. At least she has the dog and cat to keep her company. JT just got a promotion so now he is a Private, First Class. He also did something before a board and won second place. He was the lowest ranking presenter, or whatever it's called, and he placed second. They want him to do it again next month. I'm not clear at all as to what it is exactly. I just know that they were excited and happy about it.

Super Hero Party in pix

It was like 100 degrees when people started arriving. T's green paint started melting right off of him. Here is Spiderman, Mr. Incredible, and the Hulk, who J keeps refering to as "ulk".

I'm not sure why but I love this pic. It's the perspective, I think. Thwap!

It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's Superman! And Lois Lane.

Pow! Superman, Xena and Mr. Incredible.

Holy Poison Ivy, Batman! What's Xena doing here?

Kablam! It's She-ra and cHEap Man.

Here's what J calls a "Transmission". Keep in mind that the transmission went out on the car last week. The rest of us call it a Transformer. Zowie!

Zonk! Two super heroes showing their muscles.

Bam! Did you know The Hulk married Wonder Woman?

I'm not sure what's going on here. I don't know if they're working together or against each other. Or maybe they have gas. Kablam!

Holy villains! Does Batman know that the Joker and Cat Woman are here? And Xena showed up in this pic too. And a Transformer. What's up with that?

Ohhh, the Transformer transformed. Pop!

Since Super Heroes have to change quickly we played a quick-change relay game. We laughed 'til it hurt. Zowie!

Zing!

Bam! Here are the costume winners. We all voted for our favorite male and female. Mr. Incredible was already back into his alter ego clothes.

And speaking of alter ego, The Joker turned into a Steve Urkel type nerd. Holy nerds, Batman!

The end!

Hero party recap

I hate to tell you this but I don't have pix. I have been awful with the camera lately. Too much doing and not enough snapping pix. Oh well.

We had T as the Incredible Hulk, complete with green body paint and ripped clothes. I was Wonder Woman, J was Spiderman and A was a Transformer. Her costume was very original but needs some fine tuning. My parents were Superman and Lois Lane. My brother was Batman and his wife was Poison Ivy. Neice was Zena. She won the award for best costume, female. It really was good.

Nephew was The Joker who later morphed into a Steve Urkel type nerd. His wife was Cat Woman. A friend of the family was Mr. Incredible and he won the best costume, male. It was a perfect hero for him.

SIL's parents were He Man (with an alter ego of "Cheap Man") and She-ra. He made some cool wooden swords and now our Spiderman is the proud new owner of one of them.

We played some games, ate some Hero Sandwiches and side items, talked, swam and enjoyed the rain. Good times. I'll post some pics when I can.

Li'l update

A's room was finally clean yesterday morning so no pix. Sorry. But I'm not sorry. I'm glad she cleaned it.

Crazy week here. T has been working to get the boat ready so we can get out on the lake. If the gaskets come today, we will try to get out there. Otherwise we are land bound. Sigh...

Also, we have been trying to get ready for our family theme party. This year is Super Heroes. I hope it's fun. I hope we survive. It's supposed to be 100 degrees today. Sigh...

Last night I was wearing red socks and painting a white stripe on them for my Wonder Woman boots. Dexter rubbed against them and now he has a little white paint on his side.

First week of school and all the chaos that goes with that. I'm already tired of doing J's homework. Last year the goal was to get him dropped off at school without going inside with him. This year the goal is to get him working independently. Sigh...

A is on the girl's soccer team. Lots of work, practice, fundraising, etc. Sigh...

We found used tires for the boat trailer. I find it ironic that we had to find tires for our boat. We also had to find a used tire with a rim to use as a spare as there was not one with it. Why is it so hard to find a rim for a boat trailer?? Sigh...

Something is weird with my right contact and I haven't ordered new ones yet. Sigh...

That's it for now. Sigh...(yes, lots of sighing around here.)

A few trip pix

I threatened to post pix of A's room on here if she didn't clean it up. It's still not clean but I'm cutting her some slack today because I understand stress. But look for those tomorrow if it's still not clean.

As far as our trip goes, we started out at T's cousin's place just south of Springfield, IL. It's always fun to stop there or for them to stop by us. We went into Springfield one day and saw the Lincoln Memorial tomb and rubbed his nose on the copper bust in front of it. It's supposed to be good luck. Yeah, whatever. But we did it and took pix with our cell phones. We also drove around spitting cherry pits out the windows and we stoppped and got some good frozen custard. From there we headed to mid-WI.

We stayed at a campground on a small lake, J went fishing with Bampa, the girls rented a paddle boat and we visited with friends and family and went to the church where T and I got married. Of course we went to the cheese factory for cheese and then around the corner to the meat locker for brats. Good stuff. The girls found this lily on their paddle boat excursion.

This is an awesome sunset over the little lake. Love this pic.
We stopped at a store in the middle of nowhere that I remember as a small convenience store. It's much larger now. They had these HUGE Campfire marshmallows that are like 3 marshmallows in one. They were so much fun. A and E tried to put them in their mouths and say "pudgy bunny" (or something about a bunny).



From there we headed up to Door County. As I mentioned we got to meet Sarah and kids from 5frozenchamorros on our way. We had a nice time with them and got settled at our campsite. This campground had huge water slides, volleyball area, trampoline basketball, huge jumping "thing", mini golf, horseshoes, etc. J didn't want to leave to go do anything. The girls spent a lot of time practicing soccer. We went cherry picking the first day and then went to a maritime museum.

He looks like he's having fun.

We went to a dairy farm and ate ice cream and watched them milk the cows. They also had a petting zoo type area. I love goats. They're so funny.

And they had miniature horses. I love them, too. When Lady goes (she's around 24) I would definitely consider a mini horse.

Some pretty WI landscape.

And in the barn was a mini with a baby. Is that not just too precious?

One day we drove up to a state park and walked along the shoreline.

We visited a light house,

and dunked our toes into chilly Lake Michigan.

J built a "sandman", like a snowman only out of sand.

We also climbed an observation tower to look at the sights.

Then we went to a Door County fish boil. It was awesome and entertaining. They boil water in huge pots over an open fire and use baskets to lower potatoes and onions into the water. Once those have cooked for a while they use another basket to lower fish into the water. The only seasoning is salt. Just before the fish is done they throw kerosene on to the fire to boil the pot over and it gets rid of the fish oil in the water. We have some nice video of it that I may try to post some time. Everything was so good. There are a few restaurants that do this and I would recommend Peletier's in Fish Creek.

Thursday evening we spent with T's older brother and his family. Our niece has three little boys that we had never met. Here are some cousins.

I don't have much for pix after this. Sorry. I'll try to get some from my dad. We headed to the Racine area on Friday and went to the fair that evening. J got the whole fair experience; rides, food, too much rides and food and stopping at a bar at 10:00p.m. to use the facilities (where else in small town WI on a Friday night when you need a bathroom-bar of course) and puking in the car. He actually loved it until he went on a ride that goes upside down. T and I were watching a truck and tractor pull (which A said was just like after school where we live with everyone revving their truck engines and showing off) and J was with "my blogging cousin". Their daughter and her friends decided to go on this ride so J did too. Then he told them he was hungry so they bought him a burger. Bad idea. And the rest is history. We were bad about pix but at least we got J on his first ride. He has the ball cap on.

We had an excellent day the next day at my cousin's house and there were 93 people there for a family reunion on my mom's side. The kids were all very good about helping to get ready and we had a nice time, good food and good fun. J stayed in the pool all afternoon and evening and only got out for food. He got out one time and was walking around and someone asked him what he needed. He said he needed meat. Of course, meat is his favorite thing to eat. T and the girls played volley ball with a large group. Most of us sat around and talked.

We drove all the way home on Sunday and then Big Mama's transmission went out. We are so thankful that we got all the way home before that happened.

This week has been back to school and hot, hot, hot. We are trying to get ready for our family "theme party". This year it's Super Heroes. We so wish that R and JT could be here but he wasn't able to get leave. We'll try to have fun without them. That's it for now.

Short recap

Okay, the "new to us" transmission is in. T never ceases to amaze me. So far, he passed the transmissions 101, sink or swim and learn as you go class. The other transmission is bouncing around in the back of the car and stinking it up.

I took A, J and A's friend E to a state park yesterday afternoon. They did some "cliff jumping". At first J was all about it and I kept yelling "no" to him because he was on the other side of the river that I was and I could just see him jumping off and drowning. A went off the big one first and then E. A is a go getter.

Then we hiked back to another spot where there were smaller cliffs and they jumped off those. J loved it. He later told me he had gone 5 times. It was actually more like a dozen times. He just about drowned his sister on the biggest jump he made. He's still not a strong swimmer and she was there to help him but in his eagerness to get to the side he didn't think twice about pushing A under accidently. They did fine though. There was a little bitty guy, maybe 3 years old, who went off the largest of the smaller jumps. J didn't even go off that one. He would just take a running leap and he had a life jacket on so he bounced right back up out of the water. Too cute.

I dropped J off for his first day of school this morning. He went right to the class and sat down. Depending on the number of kids they have he will be switching around between 3-5 teachers. He's nervous about that. I think he'll like it after he gets used to it. I've been talking to him about not throwing fits at school and pointing out that he's almost 13 and in 6th grade and it's time to stop throwing fits. He doesn't have them much at home any more. They certainly have not gotten him what he wants. You'd think he'd figure that out. Sigh...

I will post pix as soon as I have time to. We have a super hero party to prepare for this week.

Don't even know what to call this post

I know I need to do a regular post. Sorry. It's 11:00 at night and a friend is picking J and I up tomorrow morning at 7:45 to head to school (zoiks!!) for registration, etc. Why is a friend picking us up, you might ask? That's because Big Mama (what we call our Ford Expedition) hauled us and our camper all the way up to Door County WI and all the way back home before the transmission decided it had had enough of hauling our butts around and gave up the ghost. Let me back up a little.

There was a time or two during the trip that something felt "off" and T and I would look at each other like, did you just feel that? or what was that? We got home Sunday evening and when I drove to work Monday morning there was kind of a big clunk at one point. T checked the tranny fluid and added a little just to make sure. He drove it Tuesday evening and it seemed fine until we got back to the driveway and it did the big clunk for him.

Wed. morning I took J to his dentist appointment for his second filling. He threw a fit. It wasn't pretty. Let's just say we are rescheduled for a later date and this next appointment will begin with laughing gas (maybe they can give me some too). Big Mama was really acting up too so I drove to autozone and they checked the fluid and said it was fine. He suggested taking it straight to a transmission specialist. I called T and he called my brother and it was decided I should try to get it home and T would look at it that evening. Ha!

I started it up and it wouldn't even go into reverse. So I called T back and he made arrangements for my dad and him to come get us and put Big Mama on my brother's trailer. T had to unhook the driveshaft to release the rear wheels (Big Mama's rear end was locked up). That took about 45 minutes. Then they began to pull it up on to the trailer. It barely fit, or didn't quite fit. T had to take the running boards off. It was slow going and 103 degrees. I thought T was going to pass out a time or two. 3 1/2 hours in the sun in 103 degree heat is not good.

Getting it off the trailer once we got to my brother's was interesting and slow going too. We spent about 6 hoursjust trying to get it to my brother's shop. When T dropped the transmission pan there where pieces of gears in it. Sigh...

The good news in all of this is we found a used transmission for a reasonable price and T can do most of the work himself. He never ceases to amaze me. He is in the transmissions 101 class. It's a sink or swim and learn as you go class. I'm sure he'll ace it with my brother's help this evening getting the old transmission out and my nephew's help Sat. morning putting a new one in.

So, I spent yesterday evening doing the things I planned to do yesterday during the day and spent today working, practicing music and trying to vote. Due to ridiculously long lines I wasn't able to vote. I am so bummed about that. If one of the people I planned to vote for misses it by one vote I just may loose it. Sigh...that's what's going on in our neck of the woods.

We're back

We are home. We both had to work today and lots of catch up to do but I'll post more when I can.