Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Education

Ok, for all you parents out there I thought I would share some valuable sites.

Any math problems for you or your kids, whatever subject (in math) is it... Try This site. Its a great tool for starting out or brushing up. It was a big help with Blake tonight.

How bout Geography?? There are 2 great sites that can help you and your kids learn the 50 states. I like this one best but this one is good too.

This site will test you on every continent. Those of you my age or older... your never gonna get Asia or Europe it seems you just can't pin a country down over there.

If any of you know any other great sites out there, feel free to leave them in the comments. Blake and I just might be able to use them.

Memorial Weekend

Beautiful weekend. I can't believe how hot it was.

My brother and his *wife* came into town and took Blake for the weekend. It was truly a holiday weekend for them. They took him to the go-cart tract, hiking, hot-tubing, got him new shoes, new flip-flops, and although I just had them take him for a check up eye appointment they ended up getting him new frames and lenses. Blake is pretty jazzed about it too, the new pair of frames come with sunglasses that attach.

On Friday we all hung out, BBQ'd and played Croquet before splitting ways. On Saturday I went out to a graduation party in Beut. On the way there I passed this odd antique shop...

I didn't go in because it was closed but had to stop and take a picture of this old ferris wheel type ride. That part of me that loves junky roadside attractions was just tickled to stumble across such a neat find. One of these days I'm gonna go back when the store is open and take more pictures. The front yard was a whole other blog post in itself. ha

After the graduation party I took the dogs to Bradley-Keplar lake. First time I had heard of that lake. There's a great trail you can walk part way around the lake to a farther secluded sun spot. I can't really say beach because it was sorta mucky in the water. There were a ton of people around so me and the boys found a small little spot to throw sticks away from everyone else.

They had a ton of fun swimming. I wish I had gotten a picture of Pete swimming but I only had few chances of getting my camera out at that point. The water (and me) got pretty muddy once the boys started running back and forth. The log in the picture was just a little ways out. It was really shallow on this side of the log and a little deep on the other side, Pete wasn't so excited about that so he didn't go the distance as many times as Bossco did.

There's a few docks on that lake too so when we were all said and done I took the dogs out on one of them and talked them into jumping off - so I had clean puppies to take home. It was pretty funny.

Sunday dad came out and Ian and Shira came over and we all BBQ'd again. Getting dad out here is like pulling teeth so having him and everyone else over for a meal was really nice. Dad brought the burgers and accidently bought lamb instead of beef. haha Lamb burgers are interesting. Not bad but definitely different.

Ian and Shira brought Blake home on Monday after I got home from yet another BBQ. Since they're staying with her mom in Big Lake and with Ian leaving on Friday for school in Seattle, Blake isn't able to stay with them. It was weird Blake not being here for the weekend. I think it was a little taste of what I'm gonna have to get use to.. His last day of school is on the 12th and he flies back home to his mom on the 16th. So we have 17 more days to spend together. Marty and I are gonna miss him so much but we are so grateful to have had this time with him.

Anyway we just got home from the dentist, one more appointment and his teeth are finished... Or atleast until his next 6 month check-up. Time for homework (I hate math and am not the best teacher - God please help me through this lesson).

I am hoping to see pictures and hear of everyone else's weekend so to those of you with blogs.... Get to it!! ha

Monday, May 15, 2006

Read all about it

What is it about kids? Blake says he hates soup, but once laid in front of him... Yum! He says he hates Broccli & Cauliflower but once in his mouth - yum! Halibut & other fish - same thing. Not that we have this kinda stuff frequently but you get the point.

Every day, we have to make him read. School requires him to read atleast 20 minutes a day but we usually do a minimum of a half hour. It's good for him so I don't feel bad. He's always disapointed when we tell him its time, yet LOVES the stories he reads. He's currently reading the books of Narnia; he's halfway through book 5 and still has 2 more books in the series to read after. Last night he kept grandma awake around 30 minutes just telling her all about the books. Funny how he remembers just about every little detail.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Yard Work

We planned to get together with our old roomie Shane today and BBQ, we haven't seen him in a forever. So today he shows up with Sean, a few hours early. I was gone at the time but Marty was home. By the time I get home Shane has the only rake we have, going to town on what I haven't finished in the yard. Sean is insisting he have a rake too.

Ha

I told Shane to put the rake down but he stuck to his guns. Actually I couldn't blame them, I was planning on coming home and doing the same thing because the weather was so nice. Marty started at 11 this morning. So I guess in nice spring weather we all had work-in-the-yard fever. So the boys went down and picked up steaks and rakes and by the time Blake got home from school 3 of us we're raking and Marty was the pick up man wheelin the wheelbarrow between the three of us.

My yard is done now.

Man I have missed those two tons and tons but at this rate I'm ready to keep them. haha

Back when we lived in Homer the house Shane, Clint, Marty, and I all rented together had a large field for the front yard. It had been that way for years. Soon as the snow melted we hit that yard and by the end of that month it looked like pro's had done the work. Friends came over and joined in, it was like living in bizzaro world... Guys we went to high school with, guys I would have never imagined choosing to do yard work - out there diving in to help. Sean was part of that yard crew too. Good workers they all are. Johnathan the owner of the house liked it so much he had the yard expanded and put in a pond to go with. Of course the expansion and pond came just before we all moved out of that house, but it still looks awesome to this day. So anyway, today brought back some fond memories.

I wanna throw a big ol BBQ sometime this summer but I need to go get a croquet set and a badmitten set. Then we'll be set.


Need a yard crew?

Cook some ribeye's, they will come.



This isn't even a quarter of the area they did. Man I love these guys, they really know how to treat a gal.



Waitin for fooooood.



Blake and his favorite climbing tree. Supervising all the yard work.

I'm totally ok with climbing trees, it was one of my favorite past-times as a kid. But can I just say, it is sooo different when your the adult standing on the ground? A nine year old climbing a 2 to 2 1/2 story tree with no fall protection makes one nervous, especially when he doesn't belong to me. I had to call his mom and make sure she was ok with it, she gave me the pep talk I needed to calm my nerves. Ha ha

Boys

I don't know how Marty's mom did it. With 4 of them I would be tempted to lock them all in a padded room. Especially hearing all the stunts they pulled, and injuries they got. I better not list any but that would be a great blog post if someone else wants to take it. haha

Anyway have a good night folks.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Durf

I woke up night before last to my ring finger just throbbing, it was about 3 in the morning and I was so tired and out of it I just figured I was laying on it wrong. I bent my fingers a few times to get the circulation back into it and fell back to sleep.

Yesterday I get up and forgot all about it till after church. It was about that time I remembered how my finger was throbbing so bad the night before. I tugged on it and found it loose enough to spin but too tight to get off, I should have had it sized up last time I was able to get it off (it took far to long to get it off my finger then). So I ran my finger in cold water for a spell, got some soap and tried to get the ring off with that. Next I tried lotion, then I tried windex (an old wives tale I remembered which actually works very well, usually). At one point during all this my finger turned blue and I had to push it back into place and start over.

Nothing was working despite continuing to run my finger in cold water; after an hour of water and tugging, my finger had gotten unbelievably swollen and was hurting bad. I've never seen my finger that big.

At this point it felt like it was cutting into my skin everytime I messed with it and I could feel the restricting from the throbbing. I ended up going down to Zales to have them cut my ring off. He cut it and then had to pull the gap open just under a half an inch to get my finger out, and it was still so close to the skin I got a cut pulling the ring off. After it was off I found that sometime during all this I also got a blister under the ring.

Although it's still sore it feels so much better. I have to wait a few days now before I can have the ring sized up so swelling will go down.

I feel so stupid though, haha
Having to cut a ring off, just to get it off is pretty drastic.
Next time I swear I won't be so stupid.