7 things you might not know about me

My friend, Soltana, tagged me in a cute little game.

~The rules are to link the person who sent this and leave a comment on their blog so their readers can visit yours
~Post the rules on your blog
~Share 7 strange/weird facts about yourself
~Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and link their blog
~Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

1. I have played the guitar since I was 6. (I played at my grandpa's funeral at age 7, I was invited to play at the Grange when I was 10, and I've been known to play it in church.)

2. In my more "liberal" days I went on several mission trips. I work in an orphanage in Mexico, I taught family planning and birth control in Mexico and I handed out clean needles and taught AIDS information at a clinic in San Fransisco.

3. In college I lived with and took care of a 90 year old man who was a former politician. Honestly, this was one of the best jobs I have ever had. He was such a gentleman and the stories he could tell were great. My mom loved him too.

4. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 21 years old. I never wanted or needed it before then. And I only got it at 21 because one of my cousins bet me $300 I couldn't get it by my 21st birthday. So, I drove for 8 hour straight with a drivers instructor and got my license the same day (FYI, it cost me more than the $300 to get my license in one day).

5. I spent my entire senior year of high school pregnant. I was the first girl to go to my high school pregnant. Our school was the "snob" school... and usually most girls "disappeared." I just held my head high and continued on to finish my senior year. It was really a pretty good experience for me. I met some great friends whom I probably wouldn't have spoken with under other circumstances.... and it taught me some great lessons about not judging others.

6. I am a birthmother to a wonderful 16 year old (the same one I was pregnant with in high school). She and her parents are three of the best gifts I have in my life.

7. I cry easily. Yep, I'm one of those that cries at every movie, commercial, Hallmark card, etc. I can't stand to see other people cry... I immediately start to cry too.

I tag:
1~ Ganny
2~ Shannon
3~ Amy
4~ Jill
5~ Teri
6~ Christy
7~ Julia

FFF... Favorite Foto Friday... Garbage Art

If you've ever secretly wondered whether your trash will one day come back and haunt you… let me warn you... it may if you have a 5 year old!

My son… my Advant-Garde artist… decided to make ‘something out of nothing’ the other night. While I was working on a craft project, Bryant asked me if he could work on his own project. Of course I said “Yes.”

I have to admit, I knew Bryant had gone through an awful lot of tape and glue sticks. But, I didn’t really pay attention to what he was doing or that he has successfully manged to work on his art out of my line of sight. All I knew is that he was being quiet and entertaining himself!

But what I hadn’t realized is that he had gone through our garbage can to get trash to make his project! Thank goodness it was the kitchen trash and not the bathroom trash!

He was so proud of his finished project. When I asked him what it was he said, “Duh Mom, it’s a giant jellyfish that's taking over the world.”

Let me point out the Jellyfish's finer points... it has a Walgreens Prescription Bottle Cap, a Kit-Kat wrapper, Flowers, a Glue Runner package, Silk Flowers and a Piece of Plastic on it's "head". There are Band-Aids, a Trader Joe's receipt and a Tylenol Box on it's body. It has Ribbon, String, a Pen and lots of shredded Mail as "tentacles."

This piece of garbage art is priceless. Bryant wants to send it to his Ganny... but I'm not sure I can part with it. Right now it's on our fridge where I can see it and smile every time I glance at it.

Best Friends Play at Chuck E Cheese

Bryant is very friendly... having lots of close friends. But his friend, Patrick, has been his friend since they day they were born. Patrick's mom is one of my best friends and our boys were born just a few weeks apart. You may remember this post I wrote about her.

On Monday (Martin Luther King day) the boys didn't have school. So, Patrick came to our house to play. The boys played all morning and then I surprised them by announcing we were going to Chuck E Cheese. This was particularly exciting for Bryant since we hardly ever go there.

Just like little girls, they had to get "ready" before we left. First they determined they better wash their hands and faces (they'd had chocolate donuts for breakfast). Then they both wanted to wear sport Jersey's. Bryant chose his new ESPN jersey that Suzi and Austin brought him from New York... and Patrick borrowed one of Bryant's hockey jersey's to wear. They both admired themselves and their clothes in the mirror for at least 5 minutes! Next they decided Patrick should have me spike his hair so he could look "cool" like Bryant. And lastly, they wanted a little of Zac's cologne so they could smell good. They totally cracked me up!

Here's the finished product... my two little hotties!

I didn't take a lot of pictures while at Chuck E Cheese... we were too busy playing. When did Chuck E Cheese get so many cool games?

Bryant really liked playing this game where he was shooting at aliens.

Patrick played the Fishing Game for hours. Look at all those tickets he's won!

See the green cups in the picture below... the cups are bedazzled with giant silver crowns with jewels all over them. It took Bryant 1/2 an hour before I convinced him they weren't girl cups. I ended up having to buy myself the pink crown cup (which I loved)... just so I could prove that the green one was the boy cup. *Although I secretly agreed with the boys... the green cups looked girly too.

Here's Bryant posing with the cups in question. This is him doing his mimic/impression of a girl smile.

We live in a Cool Town

We live in a town that has a small-town feeling but with big time pride. Our town(which will be referred to as XXX) is a family-friendly community that has a distinct cultural heritage. It's known as a town where people rely on family members, neighbors and churches to see them through the ups and downs of the agricultural economy. Although it's traditionally been pretty rural... mostly farming, it's really started to grow in the last couple of years. As a matter of fact, when we first moved here 5 years ago there was a bank that had a sign out front that read "Free Pig with the opening of a checking account." Being from Portland (population 2,137,565) my parents and I got a real kick of out of that!

So, this weekend our town, The City of XXX, wanted to say “thank you” to its residents who have helped the city become one of the fastest growing in the Valley. The city threw their inaugural Resident Appreciation Day.

Never wanting to pass up the opportunity for a party, free food and lots of fun, my neighbor, Jen, and I decided to take the kids to see what it was all about...

Karsyn, Cooper and Bryant waiting for the fun to begin.

Look at their faces... can you tell that I totally embarrassed them by taking a picture?

There was lots of fun to be had. Bryant especially liked watching these little girls do hip-hop tap dancing.
Apparently one of the things our town is known for (which I didn't know) is their traveling reptile exhibit. They had about 50 live snakes and other reptiles on display for the kids to enjoy. Oh... I hate snakes... but it true "boy" fashion, Bryant was fascinated by all the reptiles.

Below he is posing with a snapping turtle.
P.S. I want you to know that I am doing you a favor by not posting the picture of the giant Albino Python snake. It was as big around as my waist... and that is HUGE.

Of course, there was face paint for the kids. Just to torture me... Bryant got a spider on his face. Have I mentioned that I'm not too fond of spiders either?

Being invited to sit on the policeman's motorcycle was the highlight of Bryant's day.

The clowns were fun. This clown made Cooper and Bryant pirate swords (what was she thinking??)

Swords + boys + public place = Disaster

Every time I turned around, Bryant and Cooper were hiding in the plants jumping out trying to scare people with their swords. They were "imagining" they were in a jungle try to save people. Can you "imagine" the dirty looks they were getting from those same people they were trying to save?
Poor Cooper ended the day with a HUGE goose egg on his forehead. He and Bryant bonked heads while they were playing... and Cooper deffinitely got the worse of it.

And just to let you know... there were lots of activities for adults too. Lots of free give aways and some GREAT free food. Jen and I also got roped into a variety of things... everything from being Girl Scout leaders to hosting a Scentsational party.

Our town is so cool. We can hardly wait for next years Resident Appreciation Day!

Favorite Foto Friday... My Brother Travis

This is my brother, Travis, (on the right) with a 15 pound winter Steelhead that he caught last week.

Travis works in Genetics at Oregon Health Sciences University

Travis is 30, never been married and no kids. He is SINGLE ladies! Do any of you know anyone we could set him up with? This brother of mine needs a woman (in my opinion).

A New Do...

Some people hate going to the dentist... but I hate going to get my hair cut. Actually, it's not the care cutting I don't like... it's the finding a good stylist that I hate. It's strange really- it's not like I'm high fashion or real particular. But I have had a few HORRIBLE haircuts that have just made it so that I dread going to somebody new for a hair cut.

For the last year, I've been putting off getting my hair cut because my old stylist left the area. I've had my hair cut once (in Utah while I was on vacation in October). However, the once a year haircut has not been working for me! I've been thinking about biting the bullet and getting my haircut... but then the other day something happened that cinched it for me:

One of my neighbors (a guy) knocked on the door right after I got home from work.

Him: "Oh (stammering), sorry to bother you. (stammering again) Sorry- but you look like shit!"

Him: "Are you sick?"

Me: "No"

Him: "Oh, I must have woke you up then."

Me: "No."

Me: "Why do you think I was sleeping?"

Him: (sheepishly) "Your hair is a mess. It looks like you just woke up."

Damn. I thought I was having a good hair day!

So, I decided this must be a sign that it was time to do something about my "bed head" hair. I asked around and decided to go to see Tammy... a friend of a friend. She's been cutting hair for about 15 years.

This is Tammy... the miracle worker!

This is what the "bed head" hair looked like before the haircut...

This is about 1/4 of the hair that was cut off... Oh it feels good to have it gone!

Here is the new "do" from the front

Here it is in the back. Wow... what an improvement!

I am so thankful to have found a good stylist. I'm going to keep going to Tammy. I'm going to go more than 1x per year. I promise! And for any of you locals... call me if you want Tammy's phone number. She's totally worth your trip to the salon.

What do you think of the new "do"?

This is How we Roll...

When I was growing up, my favorite thing to do was roller skate. I spent hours upon hours skating in our basement. I'm sure my parents could attest to their displeasure of hearing my favorite roller skating songs ('409' and 'Surfin Safari' by the Beach Boys and then 'Beat It' by Micheal Jackson) over and over and over. I had those three single on 45's and would play them constantly on my record player while I skated (Gosh that makes me feel old.)

I apparently have passed my love of roller skating on to Bryant. We don't have a basement for him to skate in... but we do have hard wood floors! However, in order to save our hardwood floors, I've started taking him skating at the local roller rink. This year for Christmas Ganny and Grandpa gave him a new pair of roller blades for the rink. He's been dying to try them out, so Sunday we headed to the rink.

Bryant with his new blades. (This kids been skating since he was 2 years old)

I don't do roller blades. I still roll old skool... like with 4 wheels lined up 2 by 2.

On Sundays, our local roller rink has a special... $15 per car load. I suspect they didn't think people like us would fit 12 people into one car ! We certainly got our monies worth out of that deal. It's way more fun with lots of people, so I always try to rope my friends into going.

The girls included Karsyn, Jen, Myself, Sheyanne and Cassy (not pictured is Krystel).

The guys included Garret, Bryant, Cooper and Dallyn (not pictured is Patrick)

We can be kind of goofy (I know you find that hard to believe) and rollerskating is no exception. At first I think Dallyn (Garrett's brother) wasn't quite sure what to make of us. He'd never been anywhere with us before. So, he pretty much hung out with the kids... in the beginning.

Here's Dallyn and Krystel hanging out. Dallyn is attending Boise State University and is majoring in International Business. This was Dallyn's first time skating since he was a grade schooler. He was pretty darn good. And to be honest, I think he loved our goofy attitudes. By the end of the afternoon, he was acting as crazy as we were.

Cassy and Garrett should have won the "cutest couples award" at the rink. Awww... how sweet.

Jen should have won the "best mom who broke a sweat trying to keep her kid from falling" award.

Bryant won the "kid with the most confidence" award. Look at him getting ready to skate in the speed skate competition against all those older kids.
And, in this case, his confidence paid off! He came in 3rd place yesterday (he's won it before!)
And as always, I don't have any pictures of me skating. I'm always the one taking the pictures. So this picture of Karsyn and I will have to do. Karsyn and I get the award for "Best Cheerleaders." We were whooping and hollering for everyone to get out there and skate. We tore up that rink!

If you're interested in joining us for skating on a Sunday afternoon, let me know. Only, I must warn you that I like to pretend I'm a world class figure skater. I love to go in the middle and spin around or skate on one leg with my arms extended above my head. I look great for 23.8 seconds and then I fall.

This is what I look like skating... and if you're buying that then I have some other things I'd like to sell you...

My Mommy is a Blogger

The crazy lady shown below, the one that is the bestest Mommy in the whole world, has decided to join the 21st century and start a blog!

Besides being a great mom, she's also a great Ganny (what Bryant calls her)...

And she's a great sport... always let us make her over (including temporary tattoos). We do some crazy things to her!

Please show her some love and go to her blog...

www.thegannydiary.blogspot.com

She needs some comments of love and encouragement so she continues to blog.

Literally, We Are White Trash!

Zac seemed to be getting antsy with us under foot, so I told Bryant we would go sledding. Some of my more "hoite toite" friends, like Christy, drive to their local ski lodge to go sledding.

But, here in Idaho, we're a little more redneck.

The best placed to sled around here is at our local landfill A.K.A. garbage dump! Yes, you read that right. The garbage dump. Complete with 3000 seagulls that fly around looking for food.

Up until today, I've never been able to bring myself to go sledding at the garbage dump, but we bit the bullet and went with our neighbors Garrett and Cassy (and their children Krystel and Shyenne).

Garrett took his 3 wheeler so he could give the kids rides from the bottom of the hill to the top. Bryant thought it was pretty cool not to have to hike to the top of the hill. He loves being on the 3 wheeler with Garrett.
Here is Bryant coming down the hill. Although you can't tell in this picture, the hills are HUGE.

Bryant and Krystel had a blast "dog piling" on the sled. Let me tell you, this position on the sled is a recipe for disaster. Part way down, Krystel fell off and slid the rest of the way down on her face. Needless to say, lots of crying occurred.

Here's Cassy and I... before the sledding disaster/accident I'm going to tell you about next.

Cassy and I were showing off for the kids and decided to sled down the HUGE hill pictured below (you can see how big it is when you look at how small the cars are at the bottom). Both of us were chicken to go by ourselves so we decided to dog pile on Bryant's surf sled. You know how well that worked for Krystel and Bryant...LOL... but we thought since we are "older" we would do it better. WRONG!

So, I was on the bottom and Cassy was laying on top of me. We headed down the hill and went faster than I ever imagined possible. Unfortunately, we hadn't calculated in the fact that we weigh a lot more than the little kids and we had gravity helping us along. Cassy hung on to me for dear life and we made it to the bottom.

But then our sled stopped and we didn't!

We flew about 800 feet past the end of the snow and landed in the muddy garbage pit lake. I was laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Poor Cassy had my foot pressed up against her teeth and was about to pass out from lack of oxygen. It's really pretty amazing that we didn't break anything! The kids were crying... Bryant thought I was dead. I was wishing I was... especially since I was laying in a lake at the GARBAGE DUMP. I swear to you that the seagulls were swarming... waiting to see if we moved. If we would have laid their even a second longer I think the birds would have tried to eat us for dinner.

These dumb birds are like vultures at the the garbage dump.
Here's Cassy and I back at the top of the hill after our sledding accident. Notice how dirty and wet we are.

And just in case you didn't catch how dirty and wet we are from the muddy garbage laden lake...

I do have to say, that even though we were White Trash at the garbage dump, I would go there again any day! It was so much fun. We met a lot of other cool families and I think it's great that the landfill allows residents to use their property for sledding. I hope we get more snow this weekend so we can go back again.

PS: Zac is feeling pretty good. He's really sore and his incision sites are swollen but the extreme pain he was feeling prior to surgery is gone. He passed a major milestone today by farting. Who ever thought we would celebrate a fart? But that means his insides are getting back to normal. Hopefully #2 (as in a turd) will be following shortly. He needs to go #2 to be off the doctors "watch" list. Pray for poop!

I can't believe the "gall" of him...

Well, Zac is ending today with one less bodily organ. After several more trips to the ER and Urgent Care, they finally decided to do surgery today to see what what going on in Zac's abdomen.

Going into surgery, the surgeon was 95% sure it was Zac's gallbladder even though all his tests kept coming back normal. Sure enough, his gallbladder was badly infected. She took pictures (which I'll spare you) of his infected gallbladder. Egads! She also did a little "exploring" while she was in his abdomen and she didn't see anything else that could have been causing all Zac's pain. So, hopefully the gallbladder was the cause of everything.

Surgery started VERY early this morning.

The medication to help Zac relax before surgery was working quite good. Notice the extreme smirk on his face. He was acting pretty sassy and had all the nurses laughing.

Of course they put the leg compressors on Zac for surgery. He hadn't ever seen them before... and he wasn't real fond of them. (On a side note, I keep teasing Zac that he looks like he's laying on a pee pad in this picture. It really was a blanket... but nonetheless, I think he looks like they're prepping him for "accidents")

In this picture of Zac as he's getting ready to leave for surgery, you can really see how distended and swollen his belly is. He looks 9 months pregnant with twins. Poor guy...

They kept me updated as to Zac progress in the O.R. with this cool pager. It each stage of the surgery they would send me a message. I thought it was super cool and it helped keep me calm. What great new technology!

Here's the patient after surgery. He's already starting to look better.

He had ice packs on his stomach for the swelling and pain after surgery... but he says the pain from his incisions is MUCH better than the pain he was having before surgery.

Here's Zac this afternoon. Look at how much smaller his stomach is already! I hope his recovery is quick.

Anyone who knows Zac will enjoy this story. Zac's pretty modest... so when they told him he'd have to take off all his clothes for surgery... including his underwear... he was a little panicked. He kept asking me questions like, "do you think they look at men's "packages" when they're under anesthesia?" I told him I doubted it but he was fixated on the topic. So, after surgery when he was in recovery he was pretty doped up. Alot of what he was saying didn't make much sense. But out of nowhere he decided to try and make sense. He stated very loudly "the anesthesiologist admired my "package" and the doctor was intimidated by it." OMG. I could have died laughing. I doubt very much they even looked at his "package" but in his mind he's the fricken rock star of the hospital. He'll die of embarrassment when I remind him of what he said tomorrow when he's more with it. :)