To say I’ve been lazy would be an unfair statement. Yes, I’ve been neglecting my blog but I’ve had good reason. Apparently, the school board over planned their extreme weather days for this school year so there are days left over. Instead of letting the kids out of school a few days early they have decided to give them shorter weeks and longer weekends until summer vacation starts. That means that my normal Friday morning posting is interrupted by having to, you know, do parenting stuff.
All and all, May has just been crazy so far and it isn’t over yet that’s for sure. School and scouting are both coming to a close for summer. My daughter has had her weekends jam packed with things to do for scouting. Her troop has been spending their cookie earnings on all sort of different activities for the girls. They were able to go to Nations of Fun which is this Chuck E. Cheese’s sort of place. While the kids played, I ran around snapping pictures as usual.
Later, one mother was telling me about the problem the place used to have with pedophiles. I was like, “Oh great! You tell me this now! I was chasing kids up in the climby-thing with my camera. No wonder I was getting dirty looks.” Of course, it may have to do with the fact that I’m white and the place is run by the Comanche Nation.
Who can really know?
Another place we went was to Build-A-Bear Workshop. I had never been there before and I wish I could have stayed away. Imagine if you will a small store in a mall filled with at least twenty little girls between the ages of 3 and 12…squealing, giggling, whining. My anxiety was on red alert! Visions of Xanax and beer danced in my head.
The concept of the store is clever. You personalize your own little stuffed animal for a retarded amount of money. I wish I’d have come up with that ingenious idea. Each girl received a $50 gift card to spend, compliments of the cookie money profit. My daughter picked out a gray cat. She wanted a black one which she was going to name Darth Vader but since they didn’t have black she got a gray one and named it Elizabeth after her Aunt Liz. I swear one extreme to the next.
The toy was $16 all by itself. That price included the stuffing, a heart to go inside, and a birth certificate. However, the store is filled to the rafters with clothing and accessories for your furry friends.
You could choose to have your “friend” say something. For instance if she wanted hers to purr, there were small sound pouches you would slide into the toy before it was stuffed and when it was squeezed it would make the desired sound. OF course, there was a hefty $10 charge on that. You could also get a beating heart instead of the one that came with the toy…another $5. I managed to talk her out of these by telling her that she wouldn’t have enough money to get the clothes and accessories she wanted. It didn’t take much prodding at all.
Next we moved on to the clothes and such. She ended with this sparkly cotton candy-ish dress, complete with shoes, a crown, and even a septor. After she dressed her toy and ripped off the price tags, she found a Darth Vader costume! She didn’t have enough for it. I must have asked her at least five times, “Are you sure you don’t want to look around the whole store first before you make up your mind?” She decided that since she had already decided to name it Elizabeth she had to dress it like her REAL Aunt Liz.
Then she informed me that we would just have to come back another time so she could create Darth Vader. Oh…of course. Lucky me!
The troop also paid for the girls to attend the science museum in Oklahoma City.
We had gone when my parents visited so I didn’t feel too bad when we left a little early. My son was staying over at a friend’s house and I didn’t want him to outstay his welcome. So we dipped out around 3:30pm. The drive back is like an hour and thirty minutes.
My daughter also received all of her patches she earned for this year. I’m going to have to consider getting her a vest. Her sash cannot hold all of the patches she managed to snag this year.
The girl scouts hooked my son up as well. As a thank you for all of the hard work he did during the cookie sales, they gave him $20 AND a $30 Wal-Mart gift card. I told him next year; maybe he won’t bitch as much.
To reward my daughter and the other western Oklahoma Girl Scouts who sold 600+ boxes of cookies, we were invited to go to a local camp for a day of fun. Yours truly actually acquired a tan. That's right! I am no longer pasty white, of course, you don't want to see my ass but at least my legs aren't glowing anymore.
The kids were able to go on a scavenger hunt throught the camp. The camp pool sprung a leak a few days before so we weren't able to go swimming. There was a massive lake but the kids were only able to wade about knee deep in it...better than nothing, I guess.
I managed to snag some good nature shots while we were out there too.
Everything hasn't revolved around Girl Scouts. The kids' school held their annual carnival which happened to be the same day as the girl child's girl scout awards. I allowed the boy to go with a friend and I'd meet him there. Upon arriving, I discovered that he was the lucky recipent of a two liter of freaking Mountain Dew.
I gave him a WTF look and his response was simple, "But I already opened it!"
How convient!
My daughter played a few games...then she spotted...the...horses. That was it. We spent the rest of the carnival riding the My Little Ponies over and over again.
Later that night, I allowed my son's buddy to stay over. Throughout the night, I found my sleep being interupted by loud video games and such to which I would scream from my bedroom, "GO TO BED!" In the morning, I found the ENTIRE bottle of Dew was gone! I'm sure the boys had pinwheels in their eyes for most of the night.
Still to come in a later post…the boy’s crossover ceremony from cub scouts to boy scouts, his promotion ceremony from elementary school to middle school, the last day of school, the beginning of the summer, AND most importantly the rapture…yes, the rapture. Don't worry. My little agnostic slice of a blog will still be here on Sunday. I'll be preparing for the zombie apocalyspe. I made sure to call my hypo-Christian mother to tell her goodbye. I've got to get my ducks in a row.
So you read it here first…all of my bullshit excuses for neglecting my blog. However, lucky for me Scott still loves me and I'm off now to read his zombie post, followed by a pity party for being left out of this.
Oh and just in case Doug wants to be a smart ass again and has any snarky comments about forgetting to post my bowel movements...here you go...
Wow! I know this is a very late Fantastic Friday Five post but this week has been pretty boring with the exception of two sick kids. Forgive the briefness.
1.) My daughter came home from school on Wednesday burning up with fever and complaining that her stomach hurt. She stayed home Thursday and felt better by lunchtime (just my luck). Today I get a phone call while I’m running errands that my son is not feeling well. I end up having to go pick him up from his field trip. You KNOW a kid is sick when they want you to pick them up from a field trip. He felt better within a couple of hours and has been driving me crazy ever since. All I can say is at least I didn’t have to clean up any barf. Knock on wood.
2.) More kid news…my daughter managed to reach her Girl Scout cookie goal. She sold a whopping 600 boxes of cookies. She’s getting a butt load of patches and she earned enough cookie dough (money that can be spent at the scout store) to buy herself some nice scouting things. I also don’t have to pay for her registration next year since she sold so many cookies. I am so proud of her. Now if only I can get my son to get his shit together so he can earn his Webelos patch for Cub Scouts.
3.) Some things in life are ass backwards. For instance, my husband had his leave but he could not turn in any of his expenses until after he made it back to Afghanistan even though he had to reserve plane tickets and such over a month in advance. However, the company credit card doesn’t wait to send its bill for over almost 3K which is required to be paid in full. I said screw it. I wasn’t about to dip into my personal funds to pay that. So I called the company and told them I would pay it when the employer reimbursed us which should be mid-month. Also, it burns me that we are middle men. The employer REQUIRES you get the company credit card. I don’t understand why they just don’t pay it instead of sending the money to us and then making us pay it.
4.) I’m taking the kids to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Roderick Rules. My son is a big fan of the books. In my opinion, the books are very cleverly written. The pictures give it a comic book feel which in turn makes my son think he isn’t really reading. Shhh! Don’t tell him the truth. My daughter likes to read Dork Diaries which is sort of like the girly version of the Wimpy Kid series. I’m just glad the kids are reading. I guess I can’t expect to get them to read Atlas Shrugged…yet.
5.) On a completely unrelated topic…my son received some prism glasses on the field trip today. He informed me a few moments ago while he was wearing them that he was going to the bathroom to see how his pee looks. Now I’m being told it looked like a rainbow. This has been an Asha Special Report. You’re welcome.
During the time my husband was gracing us with his presence, I actually allowed him to leave the bedroom from time to time to spend time with our children. In the midst of this visit, we had a few small adventures locally that are worth sharing.
Too much sexy in one place
First and foremost, a friend of mine was kind enough to watch my kids for a few hours to give the husband and I time to go on a hot date. My husband took me to a fine dining restaurant (or at the very least the finest I’ve ever been to) called Rinie’s Kitchen & Wine Bar.
Rinie's Kitchen & Wine Bar
We had been there once before for our anniversary. Unfortunately, we had the kids with us so the experience wasn’t as pleasant as it could have been. We vowed to try it again without kids. We finally had our chance.
On the way there my husband joked that we would be sat near all the crying babies and fighting children since we didn’t have our own. He laughed as I suggested that we’d get stuck between a family with crying infant triplets and another table of fighting six year olds. So to prevent that situation from becoming our reality as SOON as the hostess asked where we would like to sit, I immediately asked to sit in the lounge in hopes we could avoid being anywhere near children. I actually asked her if kids could sit in there. My husband said she probably thought I was being snotty. I’d be lying if I said I gave a shit.
We got the night started with a bottle of wine. I chose a delicious Chilean Carmenere. It’s sort of a cross between a merlot and a cabernet sauvignon. It was Asunto from 2007. We ended up knocking out two bottles of that stuff. We also got the appetizer sampler platter. The platter contained fried calamari, bitterballen, chicken satay, and crab cakes. Sadly, I did not photograph the beauty that was the mere presentation of the food. Being the type of restaurant, I felt rude snapping pictures of the things I was about to consume. I mean after all, this wasn’t Long John Silvers.
We both had Caesar salads. I’m not sure if they made their own dressing but it was very tasty. As a main course, my husband got the Bacon Wrapped Filet Mignon with Grilled Shrimp. It was no surprised my husband got something that was “bacon-wrapped” because he lives by the same philosophy as I do…everything tastes better with bacon. For my main course, I ordered the Ahi Tuna with a Skewer of Grilled Shrimp. Needless to say, there was no room for dessert. I told my husband that was what the wine was for. wink wink
While my husband was here, he took pity on me allowed me to get a new camera since my old one was on its last leg. Isn’t it pretty??
He also purchased a few gifts for the kids and me while he was in Dubai.
My lovely earrings
a Hello Kitty purse
his very own Manchester United soccer jersey
The best gift of all (besides the obvious that my husband was home to share time with us) had to be my brand new shiny wedding ring. When my husband and I originally got married, we didn’t even have rings. I’ve mentioned before that we were young and stupid. Well, we were also broke as fuck. When we finally got our first set it was probably made of gold plated tin for all we knew. I think the whole set ran us under $100. Even in 1999 that was stupid cheap!
Years later in 2004, my husband purchased us a new set because he had lost his and I refused to wear the old ones. It wasn’t because I was being a materialistic twat either. We had gone through a rough patch that involved about a yearlong separation that left the symbolism of those rings entirely meaningless to me. The set he picked out for us was fairly inexpensive as far as wedding rings go. It didn’t have one solid diamond; rather it had four pushed together to give the appearance of one single diamond. I was as happy as a fat kid in a candy store.
My old wedding ring
One night a few years ago, I told my husband that one day when we had the money I wanted to get the stones switched out and have them replaced with one small diamond. I meant YEARS from now…like for our 50th wedding anniversary or something. However when my husband (did I mention he was freaking awesome??) came home, he said he wanted to purchase a whole new ring for me. He wanted it to be something I loved. He kept saying he wanted to get me the ring I “deserved”. Now as far as deserving a materialistic object goes, I want everyone out there in the blogosphere to know the only thing I want from my husband is his love and companionship. With that said, who am I to argue with him wanting to shower me with gifts? Feast your eyes on this gorgeousness!
TA-DA!
Another adventure we had involved taking the kids to the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. As always, the husband and I enjoyed it more than the kids. It’s hard to convince them that they aren’t learning anymore. I guess we foiled their lazy Spring break plans. MWUHAHAHA! Here’s some shots of our experience.
We also took the kids on an ice cream excursion to McDonald’s. I couldn’t wait to devour a hot fudge sundae. I’m not sure which of us came up with the genius idea to take the kids for ice cream at 8 o’clock at night and then try to convince them to go to bed since they had school the next day. All I know is whoever came up with the idea was able to convince the other that it absolutely made sense. I suppose the separation has made us both slightly loony.
My family enjoys going out to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. We always start the adventure atop of Mount Scott which we did this time as well. It’s sort of a ritual. It’s a beautiful site to overlook Lake Lawtonka as you can see from the photographs.
We’ve been out there a handful of times and in the distance we always see this tower. On this visit we were determined to locate it as it wasn’t advertised on any of the maps. Ok and we are pretty nosey.
Breaking rules is how you make memories, right? We ended up hiking along Lake Jed Johnson and finally made it. The majority of the hike was a winding trek uphill but we finally made it.
To our disappointment, the tower’s lower windows and doors were boarded. Apparently, the park rangers really didn’t want anyone up there. There was a sign posted declaring it a federal offense to enter. They even went the extra mile to pile boulders up in front of the door to prevent people from being able to pry it open. Bummer! Breaking a few rules is one thing but prison is a whole other ball game.
I joked with the kids that Rapunzel was in there waiting on her prince charming. My son said he saw someone in one of the upper windows. Maybe he did. Nothing surprises me.
I was able to snag a snapshot of a buffalo finally and a Longhorn. My old camera’s zoom wasn’t as good to take shots very far away. Take a gander.
During my husband’s visit I was a cooking fool! Be sure to make a trip to my new blog where I share some recipes and food related antidotes. I managed to master his favorite dessert which is pecan pie (pronounced pe-cawn, not pee-can for all you non-New Orleans folks out there).
Sometimes he actually shared with the kids which allowed me to get this gem of a photo.
My husband enjoyed being the grill master again. I did too since I hadn’t had a good steak since he left in September. I know, sniffle, sad isn’t it?
He was also home just in time to see the beginnings of springtime in our gardens. There were some blooms already taking place.
The children were extremely entertaining as you can see. They were very excited to have dad home.
We even went bowling and I have to tell you. The Wii makes it seem much easier than it is. Even though none of us will be bowling a 300 anytime soon, we did have fun.
My daughter lost one of her first front teeth while her dad was here.
Kids look so goofy in an adorable sort of way when they are missing teeth. Adults on the other hand look scary. Like this guy…
I really enjoyed the visit with my husband and I am looking forward to the next visit. In the meantime, I have to readjust to him being gone all over again. Ambien would be nice right about now.
