Day 1

My facebook photo -We take the Packers very seriously around here.

Snowcones

I like snowcones. Apparently they are a genetic taste thing. My siblings all pretty much like snowcones, some more than others but still we all like them. Rick, does not so much.
Let me tell you a story about snowcones...
It was about 8 years ago, probably this month, when my brother went to get a snowcone. It wasn't his first of the summer but probably his 50th. He was engaged and came home where his fiance was hanging out. We didn't hear all of the conversation but we did hear, "Did you spend all your money on snowcones?!" It was hillarious! She was upset with him for spending his last dollar on a snowcone. To this day, it still makes my cousins and sisters laugh when we talk about snowcones. Yeah, I guess you had to be there.
My snowcone however was mighty tasty. It was so good I had a second one at the ReAl game and little Jimmy 3 helped me drink it.

Baby Sitting The Littles

Wednesday of this week I was able to babysit the only niece and nephew Rick and I have on my side of the family. Their regular baby sitter and her daughter were sick so my sister in law asked if I could help out. I am fortunate enough that I was able to leave work and help her out. We had a great time playing all afternoon. Baby Katie is such a good baby. She was actually turning 6 months that day. She can be left on her blanket and she will entertain herself for quite some time. It was great while we ate dinner. She just laid there giggling, blowing raspberries, looking at the Christmas tree and clapping her feet together, which I must say she is a pro!
Jimmy was so good. He sat and watched Rudolph and Cars with me. He was even good when I told him to look at the ornaments with his eyes, not his hands. (he is almost 4 so you can understand the urgent need to touch everything.)
For all the fun that we had, in the end it was nice when Grandma picked them up and took them home. We were once again able to have our quiet house, which I guess I have just grown way too accustomed to these days. (I always forget that if I video tape sideways, the movie comes out sideways...I just need to remember to pull out the real video camera)

I Am a Dog Person - NOT

I made a little run over to Thanksgiving Point today to pick up some treats. While there I saw a person sitting out by their car with their dog. I have no idea what type it was...it looked like maybe a mini-greyhound = UGLY! It got me thinking about dogs...I am just not a dog person.
I sure love the dogs that live with my mom, Tomba and Picabo and really miss their baby Keely BUT I don't miss them. I don't miss their barking, their shedding, their pooping, their shedding I think you get the picture.
Rick has also had dogs in the past. We both agree that we will never again have a dog. We both love knowing that there is no dog fur on our clothing. I don't care if your dog "doesn't shed." There will be dog hair. People don't shed, well most people, but there is still people hair all over. (We happened to have a hairy monster that lives in the Jeff Gordon toilet. It has hair the EXACT same color as mine and often as long as I mine. I have no idea how it got in there. We flush it away every day but it keeps coming back. Dang Hairy Monster!)
Back to the dogs, I think about Maddy and her cat this summer. She had to find a baby-sitter for her cat for the 8 weeks she was in Mexico. It led to weeks of horrible torture for her. Even now she refers to Lexy as The Devil. When I still lived at my mom's, we had to find someone to come and let the dogs out any time we wanted to go out of town. Fortunately Tomba and Picabo do not need someone there all the time with them. They seem to be happy to be alone all day but still, making sure someone would let them out twice a day wasn't always easy.
Then there were the people who had me house/dog sit back when I was 18. They had a St Bernard and this was before Tomba and Picabo. This dog hated me! He barked so much and he was way bigger than I was. These people wanted me there all the time with this dog. It just wasn't going to happen. I had to have my boyfriend who was 6'8" come over and help because I couldn't stand to be around the dog.
Growing up our neighbors mostly had dobermans, rottweilers and german shepherds. Those dogs used to scare me. They don't so much anymore but still, I don't LIKE them. I SO did not like going to my cousins' house with their variety of german shepherds. I am told that the first was just the sweetest dog in the world. Well if that is the case, why was my uncle outside yelling at the top of his lungs at it?
I don't like dogs that stink and slobber. Way too many of them do both. Tomba and Picabo, they stink a good portion of the time.
There are many good things about dogs, I loved spending time with Tomba outside while I worked in the yard and he protected the compound by barking at anyone that happened to come into his view. Picabo, well Jimito sums it up: He was sleeping over one day and told my mom he was scared of the monsters and bad guys. (This kid plays WAY too many video games with his dad and has created such an imagination that we have to ask if he is real scared or pretend scared.) My mom said well don't worry I am here to protect you. That wasn't good enough so she told him that Jesus would protect him. Again, not good enough. Then Picabo came barging down the hall as the polar bear she is. Jimmy said, "Picabo Bites. She will protect me." She climbed up on the bed with him and they both had a peaceful night together.
The other things about dogs...I think most of the are ugly. Sure puppies are cute and so are kitties BUT they grow up. Cats are NEVER cute. Dogs, well not most of the time. More often than not they are not cute. Heck the only dogs I think are cute are Tomba and Picabo and most of the time it is only Tomba. (Sorry Picabo)
Honey and Hunter at my dad's house weren't too bad either. They mostly kept to themselves unless you were on the couch and that is pretty much their home. They didn't bark so it was easy to forget they were even around. Besides, there were enough people around to pet them that I didn't have to do it.
The moral of the story...I am just not a dog person and I am happy to be married to someone who also is not a dog person. Ok yes I like "my" dogs but I sure don't like other people's dogs. I shall never again have to worry about taking care of a dog. (And don't worry, cats will never be considered either. If we have children, they will just have to go to friends and relatives to play with pets cause they aren't going to be in our house!)

(Tomba was named after Alberto Tomba. Picabo after Picabo Street and Keely after Jean Cluade Keely even though she was a girl. She was THE cutest dog ever! We couldn't name our dogs snowball and fluffy or other lame names like those.)

Getting Ready with the Scary Face

About a month ago we headed over to Jimmy and Carrie's house for dinner with them and my dad and Laurie. Laurie is an awesome Nana. She always brings gifts for Jimito.
But first...this might have been a different visit but it was within the same week...we got there and Jimito started bawling. Usually he is so excited to see Rick and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Jimmy was able to find out though..Jimito had left his hook at his friend's house. Fortunately the friend lived only 2 houses away. Jimito is SO funny. I don't know if he is still doing it and since Carrie hasn't had a chance to blog about it, I will. (By the way, Maddy decided to call him Jimito = Hee Mee Toe = Little Jimmy) Jimito had to have his gear hooked into his shorts everyday before he would get dressed. He had to have his dager and sword and gun all in the pockets and painters hook thing before he would get dressed.
Notice not only does he have a sword, he has a spear too.So back to the visit... One of the gifts Jimito was given was a sword that makes noises like the guns we had when we were kids. Jimito got all decked out for us and gave us his scary face. Don't forget all of the nerf guns...which his dad likes as much as he does! This kid could outfit an entire army for a small country. No wonder he is going to be Cap'n Hook! (I just hope Cap'n Ris is able to join him.)

Jimmy the Pirate

First of all I need to thank Carrie and my brother Jimmy for letting me play so much with their kiddos. They are so adorable! We didn't have the camera out last night but baby Katie was giving Rick the biggest smiles. Seems that he has already won her over. While he was playing with her, I was off with Jimmy 3 to check out the zip line.
Every year my mom has a ward bbq. I have always enjoyed going so I always go back. It is so nice to see all these people who I grew up with and that love me as their own child. I so miss my mom's next door neighbors.
So back to my story...
The ward bbq takes place in the stake property to the north of Skyline's tennis courts. There are all sorts of things there including 2 baseball fields. It is lower then the parking lot so the zip line is set up from the top near the edge of the football field and runs down across one baseball field all the way out into far outfield. Probably more than 400 yards. I thought that little Jimmy might be too small but thought we would check. He wasn't. The harness was really large on him, all the way up to his armpits but he could still go. He was about the 5th or 6th little kid to go and by far the smallest.
I asked him over and over if he was sure and every time he told me yes. We told him that he needed to hold on to the rope. I told him to hold on to it like a pirate holding his sword and that going on the zip line was like a pirate jumping between boats. He thought that was great.
One of the kids in the ward was great and lifted him up onto the rope and another was waiting at the other end to help him. When I went to get him in the middle of the field he had the harness off. I said, do you want to go again. He said yes. He couldn't walk with the harness on it was so big! He took off and ran up the stairs to get ready to go again. This time he just cruised.
Alan Hyde in my mom's ward also decided to ride the zip line. Now the reason this is so amazing is because he is like 80 years old! What a sport!
Rick and I left before my mom did with the babies but she told me today that Jimmy was trying to go again before they left. What a good pirate Jimmy is going to turn out to be. Capn' Ris will be proud.

This week has been interesting and a flood of emotions up and down. Last Saturday we spent time at Jim and Carrie's. It was so much fun playing with little Jimmy. Jim and I cooked dinner then Rick and I played with little Jimmy. Poor Carrie seemed to tired. She looks good though, as does the baby.
Prior to going over there I was able to get in some pool time. As you can see by the nice red hugh to my skin.



As you can see, Baby Katie is looking great. She has such beautiful color and is so pretty. She also is very good at keeping her parents awake. Apparently she does not like to have a pacifier and therefore they have to just hold her and calm her down. Doesn't make for getting much sleep.
This hammock was hand made especially for Jim while on his mission. Rick pushed Jimmy and me in Jim's hammock. in Venezuela. We had little Jimmy laughing so hard.So then on Sunday we went to see Rick's parents and then over to his sister's house. Going up there makes us want to move further north so it would be easier to see all our family. Who knows what will happen once we get to that point. So after we had to go by my mom's to pick up my car registration paperwork. On the way we drove past Cottonwood Mall - More accurately, what is left of Cottonwood Mall.

So we got up to my mom's and I ran inside to get my stuff. Since no one was home I had to go in the back door. The yard looked so bad. Inside the house smelled and felt so dirty. As soon as I got back into the car I just started crying. The house felt so horrible to be inside. There were none of the comforts that used to be there. I mentioned this to my mom today and she thought I was criticizing her because that is what she does to people. She didn't get that I was trying to tell her that I don't want to spend time there because she doesn't take care of the things that she has.
Then my visiting teachers came by Tuesday. They are so nice and friendly. They are great! Wednesday was an apron exchange with some ladies in my ward. Here is the thing, I thought it was Thursday! I felt like such a tard when I realized this and I felt so badly. I had really wanted to go and to spend time with these wonderful ladies. They are all so nice to me and I feel so badly that I have to work and that we don't actually live in the neighborhood with them. It makes me really wish we were in a home not an apartment. Sometimes I just feel so left out between not having children and working full time. Don't get me wrong, I love my job but it just isn't conducive to having a life.
Also on Thursday, Maddy and Drew left for Mexico. Yes I know Maddy lives in Oregon and I don't see her all the time BUT I know where she is. I can always call her. While in Mexico she has turned off her phone and she only has the interwebs while at school. I was able to talk with her today though. That made me very happy. She is also having a very hard time and is homesick. So yes both my sisters have left me. They don't understand how attached I am to them! If they knew I would think that the would do a better job at not leaving me alone.
So here is it, Friday afternoon. I stayed home today from work because I had food poisoning last night. (Stupid Harmon's Salsa - It must have been the tomatoes). I have been able to get a few things done today but not all that I had planned. Such is life.
One good thing - I lost another pound! HOORAY for me! I suppose it is time to get off the computer and get some of my house cleaning done so I can have another day at the pool tomorrow. So as I end this, the flood of emotions up and down, ends on the up side as it is 3:30 on a Friday. Life can't be all bad on a Friday in the Summer!