Goodbye June.

Can you believe that summer is one month down?
Me neither.
Time is flying!

I have been really busy.
Working on my tan...
Shaving my arm-pits...
Picking my toenails...
Catching up on the Jon and Kate situation. (I think it is her awful HAIR driving him away.)
You know, all those really important things.

I have really been enjoying summer, and have been really bad about updating this blog of mine.

I hope you guys have been too busy to read it!
Let me catch you up.
My washer broke.
That big pan that sits under it would fill with water every time I ran a load.
If I tried to run two loads, without shop vac-ing the pan out, it would overflow and flood the carpet.
My basement smelled like boys socks.
Sam took it apart and did something, and now it works again.
I love me a handy man.

I was glad and a little sad that he fixed it.
Why is it that you are secretly excited to get a new appliance?
That maybe somehow the *new*! appliance will be better/easier/prettier than the old one, when in reality...it is still a washer, and you still have to put the same amount of effort into the chore of laundry.

So I guess I really am glad, we saved enough money to keep us in Fla-Vor-Ice for the rest of the summer.

Been going to the pool.
This year I have been diligently working on my skin cancer.
I have color for the first time since I was 16 and laying out in the backyard WAS my summer job.
The kids can swim.
Who knew?

This past week was our town celebration.
We supported everything this year.
The parade:

Including Star Wars Guys:

And lots of Salt Water Taffy thrown out to the crowd:


We saw a bird show:

We watched the stock parade prior to the Rodeo:

Sam took the kids to the Rodeo.
I have already been to a Rodeo.
I don't care to go back.

We also watched a movie in the town ball park.
Fun times had by all.

I have been working on a lot of scrappy crap in my studio for CHA summer.
And yeah, one of my companies is releasing a "Scrapbooker" line.
I needed photos, and paid Jayden to take some.

Pretty sweet.
Here are some that did not make the cut:
Like this one featuring Jayden's feet.



And this happy scrapper:


I can't even share the stuff I am working on, so here are some old(er) projects, just to prove that I am still scrapping:

(With a special shout-out to the Magnusson family.)



Also, the news of Michael Jackson's death hit me pretty hard.
I always figured at some point he(she?)and I would marry.
Michael was my back-up plan.
He wrote "Billie Jean" with me in mind.

Did you know that?
Sigh.
I may or may not have owned a red coat with zippers and paired it with a single white glove...back in the day.
The 80's.
I miss the 80's!
I never mastered the moon walk...and now I never will.
Some dreams die.
Along with the originator of said dreams.

Anyway, that is pretty much all I had to report here.
I can't promise that I will be posting regularly, as long as there is a sweaty plastic lounge chair with my name on it and a shallow novel...

Please disinfect your screen after reading.

"The symptoms of this new H1N1 flu virus in people are similar to the symptoms of seasonal flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue."

<---That is where I have been for the past three days.

Today, I can regulate my temperature.
I think I am getting better.

My body internal clock is awesome.
I sat on the couch alternately bundling up, and stripping down while I zoned in and out watching The Food Network and HGTV.

The best part?

I was watching Clean House, and fell asleep after the first ten minutes, then I woke up the last five minutes right during the reveal...! How awesome is that?

And it happened twice.
I woke up just in time to catch the best part.

I read a 350 page book.
I ate a whole box of Cream of Wheat. (It doesn't hurt my throat.)
I tried six different over the counter drugs. (None worked.)
I ordered a lot of stuff online.
It will be much cheaper for us when I am back in the land of the living.

Good money.

This year, we bought a season pass to our local swimming pool.
I am aware that the whole town uses this facility for their Saturday night baths.
However, they do use a lot of chlorine.
I have seen the teenagers working there test the water on several occasions.

It is pretty scientific.
They use an eyedropper, and squeeze the test sample from the pool into a glass beaker. Then they swirl it around, and look closely at the circling vortex.
Then they dump the sample back into the pool.

I figure they are looking for floating specks of poo.
So far, so good.

It also makes me feel better to know that the "Pool Rules" are posted, and they include "Do Not Swim in the Pool if you have an Open Infected Sore."

The kids were giddy about the season pass!

The first day we purchased the pass, I went with the kids to the pool.
I sat in a sticky plastic lawn chair, and read a magazine while they got things figured things out. Everyone swam, and swam. Their eyes were red, and their shoulders sunburned.

The next day, I laid down the rules.
"You have to get your rooms cleaned, and do one job of my choosing before you are free to ride your bikes to the pool."

Literally, it was as if I were Snow White, directing all of my little woodland friends into spiffing up the cottage.

Jobs done.
Kids soon pedalling furiously to the oasis of the pool.

Day three.
"Hey, guys! Your rooms are still clean, so come get your job assignments for today, and you can all head on over to the pool!"

(This summer is going to be awesome!)

And the awesomeness came to a screeching halt.

"Nah, we don't want to go to the pool. It's boring."

At this point Snow White morphed into the Wicked Step-Mother:

"You WILL go to the pool!
And YOU.
WILL.
LIKE.
IT!!!
We paid GOOD MONEY for a YEAR OF SWIMMING! A YEAR!!"

Off they went.
My angels like swimming...

Way back in 1994.

Three days ago, on the 10th, Sam and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary.

15!

It seems like it has been longer in some respects.
And in other ways, it feels like just yesterday.

I love him more now than I did on our wedding day.
Life will do that to you.



I loved him as my newlywed husband.
Like the time it was his turn to do the dishes, and I went to bed.
The next morning the dishes were still in the sink.
I was so fuming mad!
I would SHOW HIM a thing or two!
I gathered up all those dishes, and put them on the seat of his Jeep as I left for work.
He never said anything.
The dishes were done when I got home, and the apartment was vacuumed.

I was so stupid!
We fought about petty things in the beginning.
And admittedly, I have been stupid many, many times since.

I fell in love with him again as a new father.
How instantly comfortable he was with newborns.

He took care of all of our babies the first few nights they were home, as I recovered from my c-sections.
I am ashamed to say, that he changed all of those first really gross newborn diapers.
Never complained.
How safe my babies looked, curled up on his broad shoulders.

He even volunteered to spent the night in the hospital with Mikayla when she had meningitis, because he knew I would never get sleep in a hospital room.

I came in the next morning, sunlight streaming through the metal blinds, both of them laughing, and eating red jello together.

He is a good dad.

He likes to play.
He doesn't mind dragging the kids along on a golf day or to Moab for Jeep Safari.
He took Brendan in diapers to Moab.
Without me.
He just flipped him up on the hood of the Jeep to change him while they were on the trail.
I bet you see that a lot in Moab, guys driving big ol' knobby tire trail-runnin' rigs and changing poopy pants...

You never know what kind of a dad your husband will be, and I for sure lucked right out in that department.



I can't believe Sam has put up with me for fifteen years.
Here is what he has had to endure:

Constant vomiting and the crankiness that comes with that FOR FOUR WHOLE MONTHS with each one of my pregnancies.

If my feet are cold at night, they are going on his side of the bed, tucked under his legs.

If I am upstairs and need something from downstairs, I will call him on his cell phone to bring it to me. I am lazy like that. And funny thing is...he always brings it to me.


Sam frequently gets calls on his way home from work to stop at a store and pick things up for me. Photos from Costco or milk or bread, or feminine products...

Once we had a mouse in the house, and baited it with some crap that made the mouse crawl halfway up the stairs and try to die.
I found it, still barely alive.
I called him in full panic mode:
"There is a mouse dying on the stairs!"
"Well, go get some pliers, grab it by the tail, and take it out to the garbage can."
**silence**
(as I have passed out just thinking about getting that close to a mouse)

So Sam came home from work, to dispose of that mouse for me.
I love him.

I am quite sure that we have had other "incidents" of rodents.
He just never tells me anymore. That is his gift to me.

He also knows that bad tickers run in my family...and I am about a mouse away from heart failure.

He eats what I cook. Even when it is a new (barfy)weight watchers concoction with brussel sprouts and garbanzo beans.

He thinks I am sexy at any weight, and make-up optional.
He might need lasik.

He has made me a better person for knowing him, and I am really, super lucky.

We celebrated by going to the new Star Trek movie, and eating fajitas at Chili's.
WOOT! WOOT!
Don't judge.
We know we are KRAZY! With a capital "K."

Thanks for putting up with me, babe.
Here's to another fifteen!

The Trip (finally.)

I have to be honest here.
I have been having a hard time adjusting to the kids being home for the summer.
I am losing my marbles.

I know we just got home from vacation.
But, I feel like I already need another break!

My house is a pit. Constantly.
And it has been raining, so all the kids are cooped up here in the house.
With me.

Today I finally locked myself in the studio, and edited photos.

Wish I were still here:

Sigh.

I know we will get into some sort of a routine...hopefully soon.
Anyway...
The vacation.
We got back from Puerto Rico this past Sunday.
We love it there.
Here is the view from our hotel room:

Sam swung us a screaming deal to stay at a fancy pants hotel.
It had many, many pools.
Pool stunts were abundant:



Then, we discovered that our hotel had IT'S OWN PRIVATE ISLAND.
What the heck?!
Why, oh why did we waste time in a pool?
We jumped on the ferry:

And landed ourselves HERE:


The water around the island was just as warm as the air.
The kids spend all day long snorkeling.
They were tan on their backs, and their chests were as white as the sand.
It was pretty shallow, they could wade out for about a quarter mile and it was waist deep.

There were fish everywhere, and at one point there was a three foot sand shark.
As soon as we uttered the word "shark" Mikayla was done with the water.
Lucky for her, the island was infested with these bunny rabbits.
Or rabid bunnies.
<---see what I did there?
And it is probably true.

The stray bunnies looked a little rough.

I had some time to center on my inner zen and do some yoga:

Just kidding.
Don't look too close at my thighs.
The camera adds ten pounds, you know.

I sat on my duff and read a shallow cheesy romance novel.

We took a family photo.

Awww, cute.

So that was the island.
We went to the rain forest.
And this time the rain forest was very serious about being a RAIN forest.
It started out with a light mist.

It felt nice.
And then the heavens split open, and dumped buckets on us.
This is what I learned:
Don't wear a white tee-shirt in the rain forest.
Here is our family.

Blurry.
The camera lens was dripping wet.
Gah.
The kids still went swimming in the waterfall pool.
They were already wet after all...

And the rain forest is still a breathtakingly beautiful place.


What did we eat, you ask?
Well, we had to have some "parcha." (a Passion fruit)


Delish.
We tried "Pulpo"(octopus) and "Mofongo." (Mofongo is the signature dish of Puerto Rico, a mashed mound of plantains into which a combination of seafood, meat, or vegetables is added)

And of course, "pinchos"(marinated meat grilled with plantains):


Now that you are hungry for a snack, we will move on...
Y'all know how I love me some good cemeteries...
Here is one of my favorites in Puerto Rico. It is right next to El Morro, the fort.
It is very old.

They are renovating it right now.
The catacombs were actually covered over with black plastic.
We went in anyway.

Tourists...ugh.
My kids have the same morbid fascination as I do.
Poor things.
Oh...wow, what do we have here?
An open catacomb.

Looks like they are cleaning some of them out!
Look!

Some hair!

And bones!
Awesome.
You know, as always, you can click on the photos and make them BIGGER! (You know you want to...)

Then we all went over and toured the forts:
I didn't take a whole lot of photos here, because:
(a) I was also video-recording the trip and
(b) I already took a butt load of photos there when we went last time.
Here is the fam:

And some spoiled rotten (but kinda cute) world-travelin' kids:

We also went up to the Arecibo observatory.
The world's most powerful radar-radio telescope.
Pictures don't really do justice to how honking huge this thing was.
It made me dizzy to look down at it.

It was a little rainy.
It made pretty misty clouds.
I sang "Rocky Mountain High."
It needed to be sung.

Somewhere John, I mean Juan Denver smiled.
Also, I smiled at this:

In their museum.
It is a meteorite.
Found in Texas, and in a museum in Puerto Rico.
Whatevs.

But it's name is "Dimmitt."
Dude.
That is soooo finding its way into my everyday vocabulary.
"DIMMITT! Who used the last of the toilet paper!!?"
And everyone will know that I am merely speaking of a bronzite space stone.
Right?

So anyway, good times had by all, and all that.

We even made all of our flights on stand-by, which is a miracle in itself.
As is the fact that I have now blogged the trip.
Amen.