Odds and Ends

This week is the crazy week that always preceeds a big family vacation. This is the week where:

♥ I am frantically checking my packing list -- usually adding items to it as well as adding things to the shopping list.

♥ I am dumping all my cameras to make room for all the new photos we'll be taking...

♥ I'm working on laundry and

♥ cleaning the house... (you have to have a good clean house JUST IN CASE you get in an accident on your trip and strangers have to come in... that's my weird logic.)

I also have to grab the $$ out of my savings account. It's time to buy the Park Passes!! (I think we'll stick with the 3 day pass... same as last year.)

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We recently returned from our weekend in Why-oh-mun. Max's parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary so there was a BIG family party. Of course, with 6 grown children and all of their children... it IS a big party. We had a good time reconnecting with family that we only get to see once a year.

Inigo (in front of Grandpa in this picture) has a big wad of gauze in his mouth. We had originally planned to take the group photo on the buck-rail fence in the background. As little boys are wont to do, he climbed to the top of the fence where the rotton log immediately came crashing down. Poor Inigo landed face down and bit hard on his tongue. It was severly hurt. Max's sister-in-law, a nurse, said it was right on the borderline of needing stitches... she also thought it would be incredibly difficult to stitch a tongue and since we don't have great health insurance ($7500 ded.) we opted to absorb, with gauze, the incredible amount of blood that was gushing out and hope that it would eventually stop -- which it did shortly after he went to bed.

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Our hotel was... shall we say... less than stellar. When Max was growing up, this hotel was the place to stay -- the fancy schmancy hotel in his small town. Let's just say that the 20+ years since he left town has been hard on the place. It's not very often that you find a hotel that has windows that open with no screens.

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Last week we took a few more senior photos of Buttercup. On the way home was an incredible sunset. I had to stop and take a photo:

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And finally I'll end with a few more random pictures (since I just dumped both cameras):

The first is a crazy one of Inigo. Buttercup's favorite pink sunglasses broke and Inigo thought he'd play with them. We thought he looked hilarious!!

And...

While we were in Why-oh-mun we took a side trip to visit the graves of Max's two brothers. One of the hard parts of living in Florin is that he is so far away and can't visit the graves as often as he would like.

(The grave they are looking at is not his brother. Our family name is on those headstones and I don't have time right now to photoshop them out.)

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The airline tickets are bought.... hotel and rental car reservations made (thanks Red!) and I'm gearing up for the big weekend in Denver where Red and I are lucky enough to go see Wicked!! I can't tell you how excited I am for this!! (I have never been to CO before and this is a musical I have been dying to see for a looooong time! Thanks again, Red, for this opportunity!!!!)

Stay Home Little Girl!

Buttercup's last official Homecoming Dance.

Sometimes it's great being a teenager, isn't it?

*A cute, nice boy that you don't know very well asks you out and treats you like a queen....

* ... which means you have made a new friend.

* You get to hang out with friends, acting silly and having a great time.

* You get to put on sparkly make-up and have someone help you have a pretty hair-do.

* You get to wear a dress that makes you look like a princess and jewels to match.

* Dancing the night away doesn't kill you.

Noni and Buttercup in their beautiful dresses.

(Noni rented hers and Buttercup wore the same dress she wore to the Valentine dress... way to save $$ girls!!)

Buttercup's date, Mass, is 10.5 inches taller than she is.

(That's Inigo's foot in the photo. Dang him!)

Hey, Mass, why don't you sit down! That's better!

I love that Buttercup can stand on the fireplace hearth and she's still not as tall as Mass!!

******************** Since Buttercup was so gorgeous, we thought it would be a fun time to take our September family picture. I think it would have turned out okay, except I remembered after the pic was taken that I forgot to put make-up on!! Augh!

Not a Show, Just a Tell

Today was Inigo's first show-and-tell for first grade. It was also school picture day. Making sure the hair was right and the shirt looked good -- as well as ensuring the check was made out properly and the right box was checked for which pose or background color we wanted (pictures are so complex these days!) kind of eclipsed preparing what he was going to take to share. (Yes, we could have prepared it the night before, but -- to put it simply -- there just wasn't time.... I had to teach a class for Enrichment Night, prepare a dessert and attend my first Photoshop Class in Guilder. I needed Hermione's time turner!)

Thirty minutes after Inigo got on the bus I did the V-8 head slam and felt really bad that he didn't take anything.

Tonight, as we were having our family dinner we asked Inigo how his day went and what he decided to do for show-and-tell. He was completely okay that he forgot to take a toy or his badge from the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center (Great Falls souvenir). He informed us that he stood in front of his first grade class and told them that "they could ask him any question they wanted about Michael Jackson."

Yes, that was his "tell."

There were two questions posed to this local Michael Jackson expert:

#1: "Why did Michael Jackson die of a heart attack?"
A: "Well, Michael Jackson was actually murdered by someone giving him too much drugs."

and

#2: "Will you sing the song 'Beat It'?"
A: "Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah.........." and falls to the floor.

I can't wait to talk to his teacher and find out what she thought.

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Update:
This is what the substitute teacher had to say on Facebook about Inigo:

I subbed first grade yesterday. loved it!! My favorite part was show and tell. One darling little boy sang a medoly of Micheal Jackson songs, busted a few "thriller" moves and shared Michael Jackson trivia with the class. I LOVE FIRST GRADE!!

After which his teacher posted this:

HAHAHAA!!!! And that would be my class! You're the best ____!

Falls is Great

When a pet dies, I think it's smart to change your habits and routines for a few days. That way you're not wandering around the house with ghosts looking at you from the back of the couch, or the favorite stair where the pet loved laying. That way at 10:00 when you normally put the pet in its bed you're not brutally reminded that the pet is no longer there. Then you start crying all over again and it's harder to recover.

I changed my routine.

Inigo and I came with Max to Great Falls on one of his business trips. It's several hours from Florin which has removed me from the reminders of my cat and the choices we made regarding him. We are here for just two days and it has been a nice, short vacation.

Great Falls is a nice little city. I have yet to see the falls that they say stopped Lewis and Clark on their westward expedition for several weeks, but I did see the mall... I'm sure if that was here in 1805 Sacajawea would have made them stop too... but maybe not. It's pretty small.

I have thought about Dave while we've been here, but I haven't dwelled on him. I'll deal with the ghosts when we get home to Florin tomorrow.

But for now, I would like to lighten the mood here on my blog. I'll set the scene:

It's 6:30 a.m. this morning. We pulled into the hotel at 1:30 a.m.. We're tired, but Max has a 7:30 meeting so he's up and getting ready for work... noisily. Inigo wakes up and looks at Max and says,

"Dad, did you know you have a hole in your underwear?"

Max grunts an answer.

"Dad why do you have a hole in your underwear?"

Another grunt in answer.

"Dad, if there was an underwear competition, you'd lose."

I was awake but faking asleep. I couldn't hold in the laugh. Max laughed outloud too. I grabbed my phone and typed in word-for-word the conversation so that we would remember it.

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Life moves on.

Buttercup is sitting home filled to the brim with excitement. She was invited to the Homecoming dance that is next weekend. She watched as one by one all her friends were asked out and finally today her invite came. Yippee! This is a fun start to her senior year!

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We have a high school girl's volleyball team staying next door and across the hall from our room in our hotel. Please pray that they are tired enough from their game that they will go straight to bed. I'm tired after only getting 4 hours of sleep last night.

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For some reason Blogger is not putting spaces between my paragraphs. I put them there when I compose, but when I publish they aren't. I hate the look it gives my blog, but don't know how to fix it. Any one have any ideas?

A Small Tribute

R.I.P.

Dave Poops-a-Lot

(His actual given name)

Born: June 2001

Died: Sept. 9, 2009

Dave joined our family as a stray in October 2001. I found him with his litter mates, living in a trailer court that was near the sidewalk where I was working as a crossing guard. Dave kept running into the road and I was concerned he would get run over, so I brought him home with the intention of taking him to the shelter.

He ended up staying with us.

*Initially, we thought Dave was a girl and named him Pookie. The vet set us straight and we couldn't come up with a boy's name for him. Our friend, Dave, was visiting from Oregon when we brought him home and after comparing rest-room habits of Dave the man and Dave the cat we realized that the cat needed to share the name.

*The first time we called him by his new name, he meowed in answer. After that, anytime we said his name he would humm and we knew he heard us.

*Dave just wanted to have love and attention. His favorite thing was to sit on someone's lap (usually someone who was allergic or hated cats) and be petted. He purred loud enough to shake pictures off the wall.

*When we brought the dog, Lola home, we trained her to ring a bell when she wanted to go outside. Even though Dave stayed mostly indoors, he liked to sit outside on the deck in the sun and get warm. We didn't train him, but he learned to sit at the door and ring that bell so we could let him out.

*He was food driven. He also rang the bell when his food dish was nearing the bottom. Heaven forbid he had to wait to eat!

Goodbye, Dave. We'll miss you!

Mercy Agnes

That is a term I use when I'm feel frustrated, overwhelmed and distraught.

It's better than some 4 letter words that I could use... and probably have used in some instances.

Let me say it again...

MERCY AGNES!!!

My computer, the "grown-up's only" computer has died. Seriously died. I can't launch Windows, I can't get on and get my email or check my favorites list of blogs. Heck, the monitor won't even light up (I know it's on because I can see a little white arrow on it.)

Here I am on the "kids computer," which is the computer that is supposed to be full of viruses, that is supposed to be unsafe.

Here is where my photos aren't. The grown-up's computer has thousands of my photos on it. I'm ashamed to say that they aren't backed up. Thank heavens for blogs and for my daughter making me put many pictures on Picasa. I can save a couple thousand, but I'm not sure what's going to happen to the other thousands....

Please pray that Max or a computer technician can find everything I need and restore it!!

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On another sad note.... we have come to the difficult decision that Dave The Cat must leave our family and go to Kitty Heaven. I have cried buckets of tears over this decision, but it's the correct one to make. Dave has had a hard time using his kitty box and is slowly ruining the carpets and the air quality of our home. We have already had to tear out the carpet in one room and that has moved him to use other parts of the house. The vet said that once a cat starts urinating outside his box, then it's extremely difficult to make him stop.

Max will take him to the vet tomorrow.

I've lost pets before and it's never easy. Even with Dave it's not easy. He has driven me crazy since the day I brought him home. But I love him anyway and when I say good-bye to him tomorrow I will cry just as hard as I did when I said goodbye to my other pets.

So, if you could just think of Dave tomorrow and my family please send a happy thought our way, I would appreciate it!

Who's Hot?

David Cook... that's who!!

Buttercup and I had such an awesome time at his concert!! I had serious problems with my Kodak point and shoot camera (yes, I am starting to look for a new camera since we're going to Disney Land in a month and I will need a good camera for that trip), but I tried to just enjoy the evening. After all... I single handedly voted this guy in as the American Idol a year ago, so of course I was very happy to be there. ;)

We got amazing seats!! I let Buttercup skip school and she drove to Guilder 8 hours early to get in line (she went with the people who sold us the tickets) . It was a long hot day for her, but the girls are extremely nice, so it was fun for her. Later, I brought our neighbor and friend, DaWil, and we got there an hour before they opened the doors. Poor Buttercup was famished (she had brought snack food, but it wasn't the same as a good meal), so I also brought her a tasty baked potato from Wendy's -- one of her favorite meals. (Can you see her sunburn?)

The tickets were sold "General Admittance" so we were very glad the girls sacrificed their day to get in line. There were only about 20-30 people ahead of us in line, so we were able to rush in and get AMAZING seats!! Seriously.... we were on the 5th center row!!

(The only other time in my life that I had good seats like this was when I was in 8th grade and I went to this same auditorium and saw Donny & Marie Osmond in concert. That time I was on the 2nd row. Usually I sit in the nosebleed section.)

The opening band was the Crash Kings. And I have to say they weren't bad and (I'll admit) kind of cute! They were LOUD, but they rocked the place and got us ready for The Man David.



And then... after clearing the stage...

MR. COOK!!!

He proved over and over why he won American Idol. He is good!! He is a great singer, a great performer, and a wonderful musician! (Yes, America, you can thank me!) And what was fun about a concert in a small venue like this, is that it is a little more intimate and he felt like he could interact with us. He talked to us frequently between songs and made us laugh. He's still friendly and still having fun with his career.





(I realized after watching these two bands that I love watching drummers. DC's drummer was a BLAST!)


David announced after singing this song that it was just announced that day that it had gone Platinum!!!






My one and only regret for the evening was leaving when the concert was over instead of hanging around to try to get his autograph. I found out afterward that he was very gracious and came to sign autographs for those who waited by his bus. (Insert BIG frowny face here.) :-(

Oh well. It was a FANTASTIC evening and I would be happy to do it all again. We lost some hearing but made wonderful memories.

(David Archuleta is coming to the University in Dec! I will have to see if I can get some tickets for that one!)

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And now I have to ask.... can any of you recommend a nice point and shoot digital camera that won't break the bank??

If I Still Had Facebook...

... my status would say something like

"OH MY HECK!!! BUTTERCUP AND I GET TO GO TO A DAVID COOK CONCERT THIS WEEK!!"

I am so excited!!

That we even get to go is a fluke.

I had no idea he was coming until I read last Friday's newspaper and there was an article about the concert. I told Buttercup he is coming and we were both sad because we would love to go! And we knew that there was really no chance to get any tickets.

Miracle of miracles, I got a call from one of the nicest families in Florin who are BIG David Archuleta and David Cook fans. (Actually, BIG doesn't describe it... let's say they are GINORMOUS fans.) **wink*wink**

They bought tickets for their family and unfortunately some were unable to come, so they had extra. Knowing that Buttercup and I are fans, they thought we probably already had tickets, but thought they'd call anyway to see if we could use them.

I was thrilled, to say the least. I committed for two tickets immediately... I didn't check our schedule, I didn't check the bank account, I just said "YES!!" and texted Buttercup at school (it was the lunch hour, so it was legal). I think I heard her scream all the way from the high school she was so thrilled. We had to reschedule an audition that was on Wednesday for her, but other than that, it's like FATE: we are supposed to go.

(Today I found out that the family still had one ticket left so I got it for one of her friends so she'll have someone young and fun to hang out with. She loves me, but she doesn't think I'm as cool as her friends.... go figure.)

So, to the most wonderful, kindest, coolest family in Florin I say a heartfelt