A Walk in the Park

Back ages ago, when my friend Amber came for a visit, she and Geoff took our kids to a local park. I was actually on my way there when Andyn had the nastiest poop diaper ever that leaked all over her car seat! Needless to say, I had to go home and take care of the dirty work! So, while they were there they took a few good photos.

1st up: Tuffy Duck. Cute, but strange.

Then it was a photo op of Amber and her kiddos. Super cute!

And no park in Arkansas would be complete without a statue of a hillbilly plumber-butt wrangling a rattlesnake with a rabid dog nearby. Really. Who thought this would be a good idea?

Mozilla vs IE {update}

I don't take back what I said about IE but I will tell you that the first four pictures on the Halloween post disappeared for some reason! So... I fixed them. Scroll down and check out the kids' costumes!

First Annual ATV Rally

We've been camping three times as a family.

The first time was when we lived in Michigan and our ward had a Ward Family Campout. For the most part it was a lot of fun. But, it was June and it was still pretty dang cold at night so we kind of froze our booties off. Not to mention that in the middle of the night Aspen had an allergic reaction to... nature (I guess) and started barking like a seal and wheezing. It was pretty frightening! We had a resident doctor in the tent next to us and he suggested that we take her to the hospital for a breathing treatment. The closest hospital was in our home city - 45 minutes away! So, Geoff loaded her up and took her back home but decided to stop by our house and give her some Benadryl to see if that would help. It did! They both stayed there and slept and then came back out to the campsite to finish out the fun weekend. This was before we had cell phones and I had no idea what was going on but when he showed up the next morning back at camp I was greatly relieved.

Here's Geoff and the girls enjoying some pancakes for breakfast.

Craig Dahle and his daughter Syd.

And of course, Amber (Craig's wife). Still crazy after all these years! My friend Kim Humphreys is behind her.

The second time we went camping was in Oklahoma with my sister Terra, her husband Jeff, and their daughter Emma. I'll spare you the details and let you read all about it by clicking here. Needless to say, it wasn't that great of an experience! I swore then I would never go camping again.

Enter: New Friends in New City...

When we moved here we quickly became friends with this great little family that had also just moved here from out of state. One of the first things we learned about them was that they love to camp. Great. They invited us to go camping with them. I really like these guys so I told them that I would give it one more try. So follows our adventure:

We made arrangements to go camping a few weeks ago and Chrissy (mother/wife of this family) began to make arrangements. Unfortunately, all of the state parks that were relatively close to where we live were booked up. So, she asked if we wanted to go to this one in Oklahoma. At first I said "great!". But truthfully, I did not want to go camping in Oklahoma. Been there, done that. So I looked online and found this campsite that was not a state park but appeared to be really nice. It was called Byrd's Adventure Center. Go ahead, take a look. Sounds great. Right? So, I convinced Chrissy that camping in the Ozark mountains would be way more enjoyable than camping in the plains of Oklahoma and we were set! Except I missed one minor detail... this was listed on their calendar of events for that same weekend:

"Fall ATV Rally: Bring your ATVs and enjoy scenic trail rides, good food, and lots of fun. There will be beginner, intermediate and advanced trails. Special trails and games will be available for kids. Several dealerships will be on hand for demos. There will be a poker run for fun prizes."

Actually, I think I remember reading this but did give it much thought.

For the next 18 hours we were lulled to sleep and woken from semi-fitfull sleep by the sound of ATV motors. Instead of singing around the campfire we shouted over the humming of these great machines. Great, huh? It actually wasn't that bad and it was a good source of jokes for us. We were THE ONLY people there who did not have any ATVs. It was crazy! I think Chrissy learned her lesson: don't let the camping impaired decide where we camp!

All-in-all, it was a great time. By far the best camping experience for us. Chrissy, Mike and their 3 girls are fun and sweet as can be! Here are some pics of the very eventful weekend:

(click on collage to see these photos bigger)

Mozilla vs IE

If you are having trouble seeing the first 4 pictures on my blog it's because you're probably using Internet Explorer. Get with the program and use Mozilla Firefox. IE is crap.

Happy Halloweeny!

Things were pretty eventful around here for Halloween!

The festivities started on Wednesday and everything has been a blur since then!!

Our ward (church) had a Fall Festival. Kids trick-or-treated at different doors around the building, there were lots of fun games, a chili cook-off and bake-off, and of course a contest for best costume.

Asher: a pirate. Andyn: a gorilla.

Ainsley: a spider. Aspen: a snow skier.

Geoff and I went as a disco couple!

You may not notice but if you look closely in the first 2 photos our fros are curly and full. But, in the last one they are a little matted and flat! They accidentally made it into the dryer! Oops. This is particularly sad for us because Geoff and I bought those wigs our first Halloween together and have used them for various events throughout the years. They'll never be the same!

So, at this particular ward event I was in charge of the mummy wrapping game. Here is Aspen getting wrapped up by her sisters:

Here are a couple of other costumes that caught my eye: Then there was this big huge coloring page. Chrissy's girls were dressed up as the cutest little lady bugs you've ever seen!! The little one (Zella) and Andyn have become best buds and they spent most of the evening coloring on this page!

So, all this took place before it was even Halloween! Friday night we took our kids trick-or-treating just around the neighborhood where we live. This was one of the guys in our complex:

I thought he did a great job on his costume! Asher really liked it! I think we went a little too early. We wanted to get home by dark but when you trick or treat during daylight hours it's hard to know who's giving out candy. No porch lights on! I tried to strike a deal with the kids.... I would give them each a bag of their favorite candy next year for Halloween if we didn't have to go trick or treating again!!! I'm not sure if they went for it. We'll have to bring it up again next year! After the trick or treating fiasco, I took Asher, Ainsley, and Aspen downtown to this really cool little place where they have a feris wheel and carousel and were giving out free rides to kids in costumes. I paid $2 and rode the feris wheel with Aspen and then all three of them rode the carousel. We got sno cones and then headed back home.

Asher and Ainsley on the carousel and Aspen up high on the feris wheel.

I took this to show how high up we were. Now that I look at it I'm thinking how very little was holding us up!

Last but not least: last night Chrissy and Mike had us over for a little Halloween get together. It was a lot of fun! They made homemade root beer and white chili. There were nachos, little smokies, mummy pizzas, vanilla popcorn, cupcakes, cake balls.... lots of fun stuff to eat and do. We played games and the kids made "Haunted" gingerbread houses. With all of the fun going on you'd think that I would have taken a ton of pictures. Nope. I was so tired and just enjoying the entertainment! Geoff however did snap this picture of me:

Happy Halloween!!!

Flashback Friday

On Saturday while my husband Geoff and my brother-in-law Jeff - I know... this makes family get togethers fascinating! We actually have resorted to calling them G-Geoff and J-Jeff to differentiate! Anyway.... while the boys were breaking their backs loading up the rest of the stuff that we had left in Old City and bringing it to New City my sister Terra and I thought it would be a great idea to take 6 kids to the Balloon Fest in my dad's home town (which is only 30 minutes from us now... woo hoo!!)! I know... we're stupid. You'd think after all these years of practice we might have learned that only 2 parents and 6 little ones at a carnival equals devastation! I won't even go into the details but I will just say... it was a less than spectacular time!

Which brings me to this week's Flashback Friday....

In June of 2004 our town had a very similar event and we went and had a great time!! I thought that I would post pictures of this great memory instead of the crummy one (which, by the way, I did not take pictures of)!

Geoff and the girls sit and wait for the light of the hotair balloons and I captured a single decsent shot of them lighting a balloon. I'm officially replacing the old memories for the newer ones!

Mission: Kill Mouse {The Finale}

I was starting to think I was imagining this whole thing. I would go out to the van and there would be a few wisps of insulation on the floorboard under the steering wheel and would know that it wasn't there before but I would begin to think maybe I was just imagining it. Maybe it was there before and I just hadn't noticed it. Or there would be a few more bristles out of my snow brush and lying on the floor... surely I just over looked that when I vacuumed last time. And then I would find what looked like a mouse dropping on the floor mat but it had to just be small pebbles!

And then it happened. Real proof. My worst fear was realized. I found out that one of the men at church is a mechanic and I asked him on a Wednesday night to take my car for a test drive because we are having some problems with shaking in the back end. I stayed at the church for a meeting and he drove it around. Later when I was discussing the problems with him he informs me that as he was driving down one of the dark neighborhood streets he noticed that something was crawling toward him along the dashboard! It freaked him out so bad that he had to stop the car and get out! He said that it ran across the dashboard and down the side of the dash to the floorboard and then under my seat! The whole time he's telling me this I'm shouting at him, "SHUT-UP!!!!" I couldn't believe it! I asked him, "did you know that I have a mouse in my car?!!!" I really thought that he was yanking my chain! He said that it was only an inch or two long (GREAT! BABIES!) and he thought it was a big bug or water roach. But, it was dark and he couldn't be sure.

I was really going to have to get proactive at this point! The next morning I went out to the van with Geoff's beater stick in hand and opened all of the doors. My plan was to just beat the heck out of the inside until I scared it out. But then I saw this:

One of the resident cats!! Plan B!! I picked him up and stuck him in the van! I thought surely he would smell the mouse and then get after him!!! Uh. Not so much. He tooled around for about 30 seconds and then moseyed right out to take a nap in the parking lot! Stupid cat.

So, back to Plan A. I actually set up my camera to take video of Plan A. Thing is, I captured some good footage but I forgot it was on and I went back in the house to check on the kids and left it running for like 15 minutes!! So, this is an edited version to protect you all from boredom! You should turn up the volume on your speakers a little bit so you can make out my mutterings!

HA HA HA HE HE HE HO HO HO! I just couldn't help myself!

Did plan A work? Uh. Not so much.

Enter: A New Mouse Trap

My new sweet friend, Chrissy, brought one of these contraptions over to my house because she claimed that it worked really well for them in Ohio when they were capturing chipmunks or something.

At this point I was willing to try anything. I couldn't even drive the van at night I was so afraid!

We (Chrissy and I) baited it with a small amount of peanut butter (per instructions), lifted the 'doors' on either side, and placed it in the van.

Did it work? Uh. Not so much.

The little bugger ate the peanut butter and didn't get trapped! Here's the proof:

Clean as a whistle!

My absolute last resort was poison. As afraid of this guy as I was, I REALLY didn't want his decomposing body stinking up my van and us having to slash all of the seats to find it!

So, I decided to try this first:

Those of you who really know me, know that I can be a total cheapskate! This beast was $4.12! I DID NOT want to buy it! But, I had to do something. Plus, I liked the idea of not really seeing the death and destruction. I bought it, baited it, set it and placed it in the van and THIS is what I found the next morning:

DEADER THAN A DOORNAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gloria Hallelujah! Worth every penny of that $4.12!!!!!!

I captured this great moment on video, just for you....

I sound a little bit like Gollum-from Lord of the Rings!

I'm so freaking glad this mess is over!!

Rate My Space {updated}

Oops! I forgot this picture:

I can't really tell if he liked it or not... can you?

Rate My Space

While Miss Amber was visiting a couple of weeks ago, we redecorated Geoff's office. Actually, that is the whole reason she came down. I thoroughly trust her decorating sense though she probably wanted to kill me a couple of times when I tried to argue with her about something... I think she wanted to scream: "JUST TRUST ME!!!" It all worked out and here are the results:

Before:

Before:

Before:

Before:

During: We used the elevator in his building to take everything up to his office. (notice that my awesome sister came to help!)

After:

It turned out so good!!! So pretty and soothing but still manly.

Notice the nice furniture? That was from my living room. The deal was that we would load it in so we would see how it would be laid out and then we would take it BACK to my living room and he could have it when we could afford to buy ourselves some nice furniture. Stinky Geoff wouldn't give it up! I had to go order some furniture cuz he wouldn't give it back!!! Oh well, I LOVE my new furniture so I guess it was a win-win.

Here's a video of Geoff seeing it for the first time: