I'm No Fan

The President of the United States was in my neck of the woods this past weekend.

Oh joy, rapture...

He started off his weekend having a town hall meeting, to try to smooth talk his way into the hearts of the conservative residents of the state. Trying to convince hard working, self-reliant people that it's okay to turn all their healthcare over to the government... but I digress.

While he was blowing hot air, my family and I were 1.5 hours south at my parent's cabin. Our intention was to go to the mountains where it is nice and dark -- away from the city lights -- so we could watch the annual August meteor showers.

(It ended up being too cold to sit outside and watch the stars. The night time temperatures were hovering in the low 40 degree range... coupled with howling wind chills and it was too darned chilly! Bummer!)

Saturday morning, while we were eating breakfast, we could hear the whir of helicopter rotors. Thinking it was a forest service copter, we walked outside to see if we could find it.

Lo and behold, this was NO forest service helicopter!! There were two bona-fide military copters... big behemoth machines built for speed and the safety of its occupants! They were flying low, right above the famous river that is at the bottom of the mountain where my parents are building their cabin. (The copters are not in this picture. I forgot to grab my camera and take a pic of them as they flew by -- can you believe it? I took this picture Friday morning. The fog in this is hovering right above the same river. I would say the copters were just above the bottom line of the fog.)

We figured The Obamessiah was in one of these copters, getting a tour of this famous fishing river, as well as view the area where there was a 7.5 earthquake 50 years ago (coincidentally, this weekend is the 50th anniversary of the quake).

As we were leaving, we thought we'd just drive into the town that borders the National Park that His Highness was visiting that day. We've never been to a town where a President of the United States was before and we wanted to see what it was like...

We were disappointed. No one seemed excited. There were no extra American flags. Hmmm.... We noticed a lot of extra security as we drove past the airport, but that was it.

Since it was "Visit a National Park Free Day," and we knew that B.O. was going there, we thought, "Why not?" and drove through the gates. Our intention was to just drive to the first big intersection, turn around and head home. Then the plans changed to "let's drive down past that River Drive." And then, oh... what the heck? Let's just drive on down to the most famous site in the Park!

Once we got to the road that takes us to Most Famous, we realized that O.B. must have been there because traffic was more dense than I have ever seen it. We sat on the exit for 15 - 20 minutes without moving, seriously regretting the decision to drive this far but we were trapped by cars in front and behind. We could only wait.

All of a sudden, excitement shuddered through the cars around us. Yes, I could feel/sense the occupants in the cars anticipation level rising. Weird, eh? Buttercup is more observant than I am. While I am trying to figure out if we are finally going to start moving, she pointed out a long line of black SUV's with blacked out windows driving down the off-ramp. Yup! I have to assume it was B.O, wife and two daughters leaving Most Famous.

All of a sudden all the cars HAD to move!! Park Rangers were frantically waving us up the road, away from where the SUV's were unloading their passengers. That's when we noticed the great big military helicopters were in the field on the other side of the ramp. (There were too many cars ahead of us. We couldn't see the copters before.) I was driving, so I threw my camera to Max and yelled, "TAKE PICTURES!!" I don't think we got any pictures of Him, but we're pretty sure He was there.

Why did we go? It certainly wasn't in support of this man. But it was exciting. I respect the office of the President of the United States, even though I don't respect this man. I don't know if we'll ever be in close proximity to another president, so I'm glad we played "groupie" for an afternoon. Maybe the kids will remember the day we saw the President's helicopter. Maybe they'll remember that their parents were engaged in political discussions about the president. Hopefully they'll understand how blessed we are that if we don't agree with the policies and the politics of our government, we are FREE to talk about it and oppose it openly.

WE LIVE IN A GREAT COUNTRY!!!

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I had to laugh when I read this quote by Obama-O-Thou-Great-And-Wonderful when he was looking at Most Famous. I saw it in today's newspaper:

"Oh, that's pretty good. Cool! Look at that. That's a geyser there."

Seriously? That's the best he can come up with?

That's pretty un-profound!

Birthday Boy

Last week, Inigo turned 7 years old!!

The day was highly anticipated and couldn't arrive here fast enough. Every day the previous week, he asked me in his best 'canIhaveitplease' voice, "Mom, can't my birthday be on Tuesday instead of Wednesday?" And when that request was denied it turned into a more insistent, "MOM!! I WANT MY BIRTHDAY ON TUESDAY!!!"

"Why do you want it a day early?"

"Because then I won't have to wait any longer!"

Unfortunately for him, I won the battle and we celebrated his birthday on the day he was born, August 12.

(He wasn't just trying to get us to celebrate a day early. He thought we could change the actual date of his birth. Silly boy.)

We took the easy route for this year's birthday: we rented a party room at a brand new business in town that has glow-in-the-dark miniature golf, laser tag, and an arcade. We bought some pizza and some soda and with 5 friends in tow, had a rip-roarin' good time!

Inigo has been on a Peter Pan kick lately, insisting that everyone call him "Peter." He chose to have a Peter Pan birthday cake and this was the best I could come up with. I've never used fondant before. If you don't look too closely, the cake is okay. But that's only if you don't look at it too closely. (I had to photoshop his real name off the cake.)

Happy Birthday, little boy!!

We're glad you are in our family!!

Dare To Be Different

One of these things is not like the others...

One of these things just doesn't belong...

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

(This is just a funny picture I took while we were hiking last week!)

Freedom!

So here I am, the next morning after the "Big Deactivation."

Can I tell you how good it feels?

Sure, there is a twinge here and there as I think about my Facebook friends. How are they doing? How will I know if Thorny made her cross-country journey safely? (thankfully she commented on my last post, so I know she made it safely!!) My highschool friend's husband was diagnosed with lukemia last week. How will I know how his treatment is going? How will I keep up on the drama of the Scera where Red volunteers on a regular basis?

Newsflash to myself: There are other means of communication!! Facebook is NOT the only way to keep in touch with my friends. Maybe I can reintroduce myself to my email account, which I check only about once a week now. Maybe I can look at a phone and remember how it works!

Life moves on.

Update: As I went to bed last night, instead of thinking of short witty status updates, I started thinking about things I can write about here. I was smiling as I went to sleep.

Brain Dis-Function

I was reading this post of my friend, Yvonne, today and at the end she mentions that she has noticed that people aren't blogging as much as they used to.

I agree! And I'm one of those people. :(

When I started my first blog in November of 2005 (!) and for a few years after, I would fall asleep at night composing my next post. During the day I would create mental lists of things I thought were interesting. I looked for humor in every day situations so my posts wouldn't be boring. After posting something new, I would get online a gazillion times throughout the day waiting to see if anyone had made a comment. (I'm a true blogger. I live for comments. I wish I got more... hint hint.)

And then I found Facebook.

Facebook is a world that's instant. I can post a short, one line comment about my day or something funny my child has done and that's all that I need to write about. Now I find myself thinking, 'What clever thing can I put on my status?' There's no need to worry about grammar. There's no need to worry about sentence structure or if I can carry a cohesive thought for longer than 3 lines. (I still frequently get online to see if someone has commented on that status!)

I have forgotten how to be creative and I am forgetting how to tell a story.

I call it Blogging ADD.

Is there a medication for it? I'm not sure. I could deactivate my FB account, which is something I have seriously thought about. Not only does FB take away from my blog/journal, but it also takes time away from my family and home. Earlier this summer I only got online once a day and it was GREAT!! I was so busy I didn't even miss it! Slowly, I have found myself getting online with more frequency. Who is doing what? Should I change my status? What new pictures have one of my friends posted?

It's sucking the creativity right out of my brain.

I have Brain Dis-Function.

Am I a FB addict? Can I deactivate it? Probably. If you're my Facebook friend, and you don't see my status update for a while, come check my blog. I'm trying to turn my brain back on.

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UPDATE: After publishing this post, I went directly to FB and deactivated my account! I wonder how long I can last?

Fam. Pic.

One of my projects this year is to make sure that we take a family picture every month. One of my requirements is that the photo shows us having fun together. Funding doesn't allow us to go on a big vacation every month, but we've learned we can have fun in our own backyard! Here's a small sampling of some of our family photos for 2009.

You Just Thought You Knew Vocabulary!

New vocabulary words coined by Inigo:

Inspectigate: "I will 'inspectigate' this evidence and solve the mystery."

Gargoyle: "Mom, if I 'gargoyle' with the water after I brush my teeth, can I spit it into the bushes?" (said while camping)

Aqua-pied: "I will go ahead and watch TV all morning so that I can be 'aqua-pied' while you clean the house."

(There is one more hilarious word, but for the life of me I can't remember. When I do, I will add it.)

I expect we'll see these new words added to the dictionary in the next year or two!

Happy side note: My girl has returned from her trip to the Pacific Northwest. She had a wonderful time! Her Aunt and Cousins spoiled her rotten and kept her 'aqua-pied' from sunup til sundown. However, it's back to reality for her as she is now home and needs to help me get ready for a family reunion that will be at my house on Saturday: We're feeding 30 people breakfast before Max's cousin gets married in the Florin Temple.