'Member Me?

Forgive me, reader for I have been absent. It has been 5 months since my last post.

So much has happened since then there is no possible way to catch you all up... but I'll try.

Here now is short summary of life since the last post sung to the tune of 12 days of Christmas

Since the last post on this blog
this has happened to me

12 diets started
11 diets ended
10 friends found on facebook
9 thousand text messages
8 nursing home tours
7 video projects
6 rooms to pack
5 holidays
4 thousand emails
3 hospital or nursing home admissions
2 broken bones
and not even one single blot post about them

I promise I will be back tomorrow. I won't abandon you, my dear faithful readers, again... Hello? Are you there? Hmmm..maybe I'm too late.

Pink Ribbons as Blinders

So, we are driving down the street and we see a sign outside a doctor's office....

"Breast Cancer Awareness Month"

The problem is, I'm driving about 40 mph and my 12 year old only reads at about 20 mph...

This is what he got out of the sign...

"Breast Awareness Month" You can only imagine the hilarity that ensued.

Thank you... but I'd rather he not be that aware at 12 years of age.

Kitchen Caution

Look, it's not like I'm a great chef anyway. My 12 year old knows his way around a kitchen better than I do. It's not that I'm not a good cook... Ok, it's not ONLY that I'm not a good cook.. It's also that I'm busy, busy, busy! I'm constantly multitasking and thinking about a great many things other than cooking. However, when one is not completely focused on the task at hand bad things can happen.

In my defense, the bottles do look an awful lot alike, don't they?

I will say... that Smoothie was Smokey!

the birthday boy embraces his inner nerd...

I might well be a bad, absent at times blogger, but I am an even worse blogger mother! My oldest turned 15 and didn't even get a mention... I am here to correct that now!

Happy Birthday Cody!

This is an excerpt from our homeschool yearbook I made for this past school year. This was the culmination of Cody's coop study of Ancient Greece. Cody made his costume out of a red sheet I wasn't aware I didn't need anymore. He built his own sword with foam and PVC pipe, and fashioned his hoplite shield out of a trash can lid and lots of black and red duct tape. He joked after he was all dressed up and ready to go that he was "embracing his inner nerd". Dillon agreed with him saying (in his best nerdy accent)... "the star trek convention awaits us."

As you watch, realize the students took a few liberties.. I don't think I recall any place where it spoke of Spartan Warriors battling it out with Athenian philosophers. I'm not sure the swords really work with the togas.. but I can tell you this. The kids had a blast. And so did I. It is thrilling to watch your kids get so excited about learning.

So watch and enjoy.. (fyi.. Cody is the sword wielding maniac in the long flowy red robes... that were so previously really usable and good sheets)

Happy Birthday Dillon

You're getting SO BIG!

More Vacation Fun

Ok, here's the thing, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but it still doesn't quite do justice to how truly lovely Turner Falls is.. umm.. err... are? Are they plural Falls, or is it a singular park? Oh, who cares.. It was vacation.

Turner Falls started out well enough. We drove in , parked the car after exploring for a bit. If you must know, Cody had started the miserable teenage bit first. He was none to happy to see other people there. One would think that he expected us to rent the entire park all to ourselves. But Cody is nothing if not proactive, and he apparently sent his complaints to God, since it was obvious I wasn't going to do anything about them. Just about the time, Dillon got in the water, the pool that the falls emptied into, the skies lets loose with a vengence. Lighting and thunder erupted and everyone was out of the water.. umm, unfortunately that included Dillon who was none too happy.. as this picture I snapped on our way to shelter affirms...

Notice the evil glint in Cody's eye, as he realizes his masterful plan worked. People were leaving the park by the van loads... and we, if we could wait out the storm, would have the whole park to ourselves. Doesn't he just look like he's about to explode with manical laughter... and, Jim.. well, he's trying to give Dillon lessons and smiling through the pain (Did I mention seconds before the storm started, which was seconds after Dillon jumped in, he cut his foot on a rock.) Dillon isn't falling for it.. and it's not working too well for Jim... How will we ever salvage this day?

We waited the storm out by changing in the bathrooms and posing for pictures. Jim even pulled his guitar out and serenaded us on top of the mountain. The boys smiles are coming back...

And then the rain stopped, and we had the park and all it's meandering pools mostly to ourselves. But never one to be without complaints, Cody reached into his bag of nags and made note that the rocks were slippery and the water tasted awful. But I do know that for a few seconds he had carefree fun..

This might be my favorite photo from the whole trip. I caught this image while we were hiking up at the top of the mountains. Please note that I was scared to death that my baby was this close to the edge of this cliff... I realize that he doesn't look much like my baby anymore, and this photo doesn't show how far down the stream is...

In addition to hiking, Jim and Dillon went spelunking. Can you believe they actually crawled in this itty bitty hole?

and came out on the other side... without one bat bite...

One more cool thing about the park... Apparently in the 30's some guy who had more money than he knew what to do with built a castle. My kids love all things medieval, but the flight of steps it took to get to the castle at the end of the day, coupled with the fact the castle was now a nest for millions of daddy long legs seeking knight hood, made it extra special.

We had a great time.. despite the cut foot, storms, slippery rocks, silty water never meant to be drinking water... even with all the eeewww! , there was still plenty of oohh! and aaaahh! and lots of awe as we were able to get away, far from the cell phones and e-mails. We were able to be a family without interruption... and I would do it again in a heart beat.

It's a Family Vacation

The fearless family sets out on their first ever, every one included, family vacation. Notice how excited the boy and the mom look. The teenager looks like a teenager, complete with ear phones.. and the dad already looks tired. He really needed this vacation.

First Activity: Fishing

These fishermen may not have caught any fish.. but the certainly had fun, while I worried about someone getting hooked during a cast. What? I'm a mom.. worrying about obscure accidents is my job.

Next stop.. Arbuckle Wilderness.

this lovely llama really wanted me to roll down my window. But I wasn't sure if llamas were spitting or biting type creatures.. so the window remained tightly sealed. Until....

straight out of jurassic park... this emu approached my side of the car. Jim was rolling down his window to feed some cute and cuddly creature on his side of the vehicle...but pressed the wrong button.. AND ROLLED MY WINDOW DOWN BRINGING ME FACE TO BEAK WITH THIS LOVELY THING. Jim claims it was accident. I'm not so sure.

All the animals were beautiful.. er, ok.. the emu was in his very own odd way, a handsome bird.

Here are a few of the other friends we made.

Arbuckle wilderness was a huge highlight of the trip. And I think the animals thought we were the tourist attraction. They were all so curious about us. OK, we had food. They could have cared less about us except for the fact that we had large Pepsi cups filled with some kind of generic animal chow, formulated for the needs of donkeys, llamas, emus, ostriches, camels, giraffes, bovines, and the list goes on... And to think my boys think I'm required to make special meals for each of them according to their individual tastes. From now on, they get pellets from a Pepsi cup.

come back tomorrow to see more from our trip!