Lost in translation

J doesn't always know how to word things so he takes what he knows or has experienced and tries to put it together with a new experience and explain it. That usually results in a funny "lost in translation" moment. When he first came home it bothered him that we laughed but now he knows we are revelling in the joy and not laughing at him.

He has experienced stepping in dog/cat poop. The other day he ran some over with his bike but he didn't know how to explain it. He said, "My bike stepped in cat poop."

Too funny!

"It"

Here is our new "grandcritter", It. Isn't she precious?!?

She is a four week old sheltie pup that I will be flying out to CO with in Sept. When I was getting the puppy ok'd with the airline as a carry on, they asked her name. R is still trying to name her so I said she didn't have a name yet so the airline labeled her as "it".

Yes, us "CO Ladies" are at it again. One of us couldn't go but we've added another. Poor R and JT! It will probably take all three of us crazy women to get the puppy to CO safely. R has already had a dream that the puppy arrived safely. I asked if the rest of us did and if we had smiles on our faces.

So, does "It" look like a Vixie (female fox from The Fox and the Hound movie) or like a Skylar? Leave a comment and vote.

Another day at the lake

We spent another awesome day at the lake. No, our boat is not fixed but it was just J, T and I with my dad in his boat. We went to a different lake and it was pretty quiet. It's a much smaller lake than we usually go to but it was nice. J tubed and we parked and swam for a while and rode around looking at the lake. Good times!

All in the family

Ok, blogger is so strange sometimes. But, whatever. Something I really wish I had are baby pics of J. He's so cute now at almost 14 I wish I knew what he looked like as a baby. I need to find a pic I have of him and his birthmom. He looks so much like her. Anyway, I was thinking about how the girls like us or like other members of the family. When A was born she looked just like my baby pics. Sorry this is sideways (thank you, blogger) but I'm in the black and white pic and A is in color. We could have been twins! There's another pic further down (again, thank you blogger) that's blurrier but at least you won't crane your neck to see it.

This is when A was about 5 and I was about 4. See? Twins.


And R looked just like her daddy. Speaking of twins, T is a twin. He's on the right in the pics. You can try clicking on them to blow them up.

A and I. Our hands, mouths, eyes and eyebrows are just alike.

T and R at about 5 years old.

As the girls grew, R ended up looking more like me and A reminds me of T's sisters somewhat. This is my senior pic, R's senior pic and A's senior pic left to right.

Yup, R and I look a lot alike except she got her daddy's eye color.

A and I. I was holding Franny the terror. I mean terrior. She was so cute but she was a pistol.

Some fav baby pics of R. She often did that little sideways pose in the top pic.

Fav toddler pic of R. Look how blond she was.

Fav baby pic of A. T used to say she was so fat that she didn't have joints, she just had folds.

Fav toddler pic of A. She LOVED to dance. This was her "I Wanna Be Loved By You" costume. She potty trained in order to go to dance class because I told her I couldn't afford both dance and diapers.

And just because he's so cute, here is Diesel sleeping in front of the computer.

He has an overbite which keeps his mouth from closing completely. If he had large front teeth he'd be buck toothed.

Thoughts

We are enjoying the summer even though the boat is dead in the water. Hahaha. Couldn't help it. It's actually disabled in our carport. Had fun with the kids in the pool last night while T worked late.

J is still cracking us up with his lost in translations. I can't think of any right now but we are always laughing at his command of the english language.

A is at college orientation today. It makes me feel old.

Looking forward to friends and Haitian food this evening. I hope our friends remember they are supposed to come.

I was reading a post on Livesays blog about the profound grief that adopted children go through. We've done a similar little exercise once where we listed things we knew and loved and then were told we had to give them all up. Everything we knew. And that we were going to a new family in a new country and that these people loved us. It's boggling to think about.

And then there are situations like this one http://www.nogreaterjoymom.com/2011/07/so-extremely-desperate.html where the child is absolutely desperate for a family. Can you help in any way?

Or go to this blog http://www.realhopeforhaiti.org/ and see if you can do anything to help. Cholera is refusing to leave Haiti alone.

Those are a few of my thoughts for today.

Summer

We are still here. Lots going on but not a lot going on, if you know what I mean.

The boat is out of commission for now. The gears in the outdrive are messed up. It's sad because we have enjoyed it so much and now we don't have much for resources for repairing it. Sigh...

T and I ate tomatoes from the garden this evening, straight off the vine. Heavenly! And then we went in the pool. Also heavenly! We are thankful. Would that be considered a thankful list? And I'm thankful for chocolate too. Have I ever mentioned that?

I walked on the treadmill this evening. It's in a new spot in the office/music room and now you can see the tv in the living room from the treadmill. Might be a good thing for getting T on it. I usually read while I walk. I feel fat. But that didn't stop me from eating a piece of kringle. Love that stuff. I just took the last of it from our trip to WI out of  the freezer.

A friend told me a story this afternoon about being bit by a possum. She picked it up by the tail and it swung around and bit her hand. What was she thinking? The story involves said possum flying involuntarily across their yard. Again I say, what was she thinking?! She did not get rabies shots but she did nearly pass out. I told her if she ever bites me or starts foaming at the mouth we are both getting rabies shots.

We have a huge number of lightning bugs/fireflies around here this year. Am loving them. One got into the house a couple weeks ago and was flying around the living room in the dark while we watched a movie. Too funny.

In an effort to show his congregation the meaning of "koinonia" our pastor and his family held a surprise lunch today. He was only about 15 minutes into his sermon when he invited all of us downstairs for lunch. That was church. How cool is that?! We were instructed to sit next to someone we didn't know well and get to know them better. At our table we talked about tires and being stopped by the police. You know, deeply spiritual and "get to know you" stuff like that. I wonder if we're going to have an extra long sermon next week?

Ah, summer.

Lost in translation

J continues to crack us up with his (mis)understanding of the English language. Here are a few "J-isms".

Singing at the top of his voice- "Jeremiah was a bulldog!"

He got choked at "deener" one evening and said, "It went down de wrong froat."

We were looking at 18 day old puppies the other day. He was letting them suck on his fingers and ooohhing and aahhhing over them. Then he looked at me so seriously and said, "Are dey buttweilers?" I asked him what he said and he asked again, "De puppies, are dey are buttweilers?" I said, "No, they are shelties and I think you mean 'rottweilers', not buttweilers."

I've shared on here before how we were listening to a Sonny and Cher record and were talking about Sonny dying in a skiing accident. The only kind of skiing J has been exposed to is waterskiing and he couldn't figure out how in the world a tree got in the middle of the water. We explained snow skiing to him but I'm not sure how much sunk in. We haven't spoken about it for a couple months yet the other day at the lake we asked him if he wanted to try skiing and he said, "No. I keep tinking about that guy who died from skiing." Sigh..."La de da da de, la de da de da. And the beat goes on..."

Picture post!

Ok. I don't get blogger and it's randomness with my pics but, whatever. We'll go with it. T's parents got here on Thur eve. We went out to eat after praise team practice and had a nice time with them. R and JT got here on Friday about mid-day and they had another couple with them. We all went to the local fireworks show that evening. Here are a few samples. 

I love this one because it looks like little musical notes.

On Wed evening I started staining the new doors. They are metal doors so I use a gel stain. I have a graining tool but the gel stain was old and lumpy and the doors were a gray primer instead of white so I ended up just ragging it on and it looks ok. Not what I'd like but ok. I tape off parts of it to help get the look of wood.

Finished on the inside. The edges and outside are still primer gray.

This was the evening of the 4th. No makeup and after swimming.

All of us. T, JT, R, J in front of G'ma, me, A and G'pa.

Silly one!

R and JT. If they ever have babies they will have beautiful blue eyes.

We went to the lake after church on Sunday. Here is G'ma and I in my dad's boat.

G'pa watching J tubing behind my dad's boat.

At a waterfall we like to go to.

The young'uns.

The old'uns.

We think this is A's bf, P, skiing behind our boat. There was so much junk in the water that T had to drive, I had to watch for junk and we had another spotter for the skier.

Everyone else was in dad's boat.

Some last minute instructions for the soldier skiers.

And arm wrestling in the other boat.

We think this is JT. He made it up on the first try. I'm so glad I glanced back in time to see him wildly trying to hang on at one point with one foot/ski out of the water and arms and legs flailing just before he wiped out. So funny! 

Soldier buddy. He perfected a butt surfing move. He started to fall back but it was like the water bounced him back up. Then he started to fall again and the same thing happened. Then again. He was up, down, up, down, up, down, up! Butt surfing.

And now back to the water fall. Thank you blogger. You've already seen the old'uns and the young'uns. This is the between'uns. And soldier buddy's wife.

And this is dad and soldier buddy, D, in dad's boat. Think that's a self portrait of my dad? I think so.

Teenage mutant ninja kitten

We were all sitting out on the gazebo this evening, talking and enjoying the cool down from the day. 3 of the girls had just ridden the horses. Diesel was in and out playing with us and running off to do cat things. Then he came back and A didn't recognize him. He was wet. He was very dirty. And he had come from the lagoon area. Ewwwww!!!!! Best we can figure is he was chasing frogs and got too close to the edge and fell in. We had to give him a bath. He was not impressed.

They're baaaaaack!

R and JT are here. They brought another couple with them. T's parents are here. We are having a blast celebrating the 4th and just being together.