Africa

Our humble little zoo just opened a Africa exhibit. We now have lions and giraffes. The kids saw the giraffe heads poking over the fence when we were biking past and the begging commenced. They had to wait until the following Thursday (Thursday being the half price zoo admission day) and then we bundled up and headed out. My friend Whitney met me there with her little ones, Savannah and Addie. Ethan and Savannah were in heaven. They have a "thing" for each other. Savannah has informed her mom that Ethan is sexy and she is going to marry him. Ethan has informed me he loves papa more than me, but Savannah more then papa.

Once again we are slacking

Life is a little nuts right now, so the whole blog thing has fallen by the wayside. Someday I will add some cute pictures and funny quotes, but right now I am just letting my adoring public know that we haven't forgotten you.
Michael is gone ALL THE TIME. We knew it was going to happen, but it is still hard. Thankfully he is doing well in all of his classes and work still loves him. His family is another matter though. Actually Ethan told me the other day, "Mama, I want you to go to school, and work, and do homework, because I love Papa a lot more then I love you." Just warmed the very cockles of my heart. Ungrateful little toad. I will try to post some pictures soon, but be very surprised if I get anything posted before Halloween.

Where does she come up with these things?

We were all in the car coming home from dinner with the in-laws. Michael and I got in a conversation over which of us is better looking. We, being the good parents we are, drug our kids into the middle of the fight.

"Ethan, who is better looking, mama or papa?" My dear husband asks.
"Um...Papa is."

Well, then I needed to ask Libby in hopes of evening the score.

"Libby, who is better looking, mama or papa?"
"Umm....um...I AM." followed by giggles.

****

Yesterday, the kids and I were taking the trash down. I stopped in surprise and pointed into the tree. There were three fuzzy gray and black raccoons. We stared at them and they stared at us. Ethan was fascinated. Libby was terrified. She is not an animal lover by nature, and wild animals in her tree was just to much for her. She was crying and fussing. She finally conceded to inch past the tree, as long as I stood between her and the raccoons. We got down to the dumpster and Libby finally regained her ability to talk.

"Mama, the rattoons scared me."
"I know, baby."
"The rattoons really, really scared me."
"I know."
"My eyebrows were scared of the rattoons."

We Can Hardly Believe it Either

Camping Above Cascade - Part 3

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I am exhausted! It's a lot of work to enjoy our summer to the fullest. This time we went camping with my family in the Boise National Forest. Dig your own latrine, haul your own water, get eaten by horseflies type of camping. There were roughly a dozen adults and a dozen children under 18. Everyone found something that brought them great joy while we were up there. Everyone that is, except for the 17- and 15-year-old nephews, who are filled with teenage angst and can't function without electronics. We were camped next to a pond filled with frogs, polliwogs, bugs and shoe-sucking mud. My twelve-year-old niece made a small fortune retrieving lost children's shoes from the muck.

Kylynn showing off two of the frogs she liberated from the pond.

If mud and muck aren't your thing, my brother Joe and his wife Kerry brought up their horses. Everyone but my little Libby loved the horses. Libby is still chicken. She lives in fear the horse "will shake [her] off". Uncle Joe promised her the horse has never "shaken" anyone off, but she doesn't seem to believe him. If you knew my brother, you probably wouldn't believe him either.

I have been on a horse about four times since I was twelve, and all of those in the last couple of weeks. So of course when Kerry asked if I wanted to run a horse with her I said yes. So there I was clutching the reins and pommel and bouncing around in the saddle like a yo-yo. Things were going well and life was good. Then Kerry ran her horse past camp with me close behind. My horse did not want to run past camp, my horse wanted to run TO camp. She threw herself around a corner that was more then 90 degrees with me screaming "NO, NO, ARGGG, NO, AHHHHH!" My foot slipped out of the stirrup and I was clutching the horse for dear life. Thankfully I stayed on and only suffered minor bruises. Kerry got down to the end of the road and realized I wasn't there. She came running back to camp panic stricken. She was terrified that I had been thrown. I took pity on her and only rubbed it in for two days that she could have severely injured me. I also made it a point to show her my bruises and complain about my twisted ankle, just so she would learn her lesson.

The only time Libby even sat on a horse. Her cousin Aubrey (the racketeer) with her.

The children were covered with dirt and mud the entire time we were up there. We tried washing them in the creek, but they were too smart to go past their ankles in the frigid water. We are still trying to soak all the grime off of their feet.

This was Xander during a clean moment. Yes, he does seem to be a bit of a pervert.

Oh, I love the dirt.

I had a brief manly moment and chopped this pile of wood. It was a pathetic thing to see, but the wood was chopped, I walked away with all my phalanges, and I only got two blisters. I count that as a success.

It did rain the last full day we were there but it didn't really come down until everyone went to bed for the night. Then it stormed. Thankfully it had almost quit by the time we got up.Rain....The creator of family togetherness.

Joe took Ethan fishing and he caught his very first fish. And his second. He was very pleased with himself. He even ate a few bites and deemed it good.