Leaving My Babies

I'm leaving early in the morning for our Mary Kay Seminar in Dallas. I'll be gone until Saturday night. I have never left Porter overnight and I'm really anxious about it. Mike will be here with the kids and I know, next to mommy, that Daddy is the best person to take care of the kids, but still. Porter is so easy and I know he'll be fine, but it's me I'm worried about. I left Rachel with Mike overnight when she was a year old and then went to Seminar that same summer when she was just about 17 months old. She had a blast and that is a time that Mamaw will always remember, I know. This time will be great as well and I know it will be special for Daddy to get that bonding time, but my heart is aching knowing that it's going to be four full days away from my sweet baby boy whom I've never been away from at all. I sat for the longest time holding him and rocking him before laying him in bed tonight. I'm afraid I'm going to miss something. He'll probably have a tooth break through or he'll finally figure out that he can actually go somewhere on his hands and knees without scooting on his belly. I know I'm going to have a great time, as I always do when I go to anything Mary Kay. I just have to focus on that, focus on learning everything I can, get in some good "me" time with no responsibilities, and look forward to lots of hugs and kisses on Saturday. Just pray that I can keep my composure when I get overwhelmed with missing the kids. :)

Mice - God's Most Loathsome Creature

There is a mouse in our house right now. I can't even begin to express how much I HATE mice!!!!!!! I mean, loathe probably isn't even a strong enough word. Mike saw it last night about 10:00 run behind the TV from the kitchen. Needless to say, I got on top of a chair in what could be considered stealth speed. We didn't have any traps, so I left within about 3 minutes and headed to the store to get traps. I brought home 8 traps. We set four of them around the TV because Mike said it hadn't moved from there. I told Mike to try and scare it out from there so it would run into one of those traps. That little varmint passed every one of those traps and ran under the couch. From there, he ran behind the computer. Then he came out of there and now I have no idea where he is. When he came out from under the TV, we let Kramer into the house, but he's no hunting dog, that's for sure, and the most he did was sniff around and get mildly curious. All three of the dogs are in here right now and two traps are still set. I'm in shoes because I can't stand the thought of walking in bare feet when there's a possibility of a mouse running around here. Know of anyone who enjoys hunting mice?

Off to Reunion

We're heading out tomorrow for Mike's family reunion. I'm so excited to go!! I've been looking forward to this for weeks. Now that all the prep is mostly done and we're leaving tomorrow morning, there's nothing on the agenda for the next 4 days! Gosh, I love it. Nothing to do except hang out with family and enjoy catching up with some folks we haven't seen in two years. We'll play cards, probably some Hold 'Em, maybe some Risk, we'll eat a lot, we'll take a nap here and there, and do a lot of just relaxing. Man, I seriously cannot wait!!!!!

We'll have lots of pictures when we come home, so I'll post those when we return. Everyone have a super weekend.

Sparkler Bomb

Last I heard, the 4th of July was supposed to be about celebrating our nation's independance. It's a day where friends and family get together, eat some traditional American cuisine (i.e. burgers and dogs and the fixins), and shoot off fireworks in celebration. Somehow, my husband and our dear friend Jeremy have decided that it's a day to make their own explosives, Arkansas style. Thus we have...... the Sparkler Bomb.

The beginnings.... 600 sparklers.

The assembly..... duct tape.

The getaway....

we're waiting....

And we have the explosion....

Trying to put out the fire....

Had I known exactly how high those flames would have gone, I'd have backed my camera up so that I could have gotten the full effect. Jeremy took some video of the spectacle and after watching the replay, we're pretty sure the flames and sparks reached at least 30 feet in the air. We're going to see about getting it on youtube, so if that happens, I'll be sure to post the link.

Otherwise, we had a very safe 4th and really enjoyed our time with the Thompsons and my mom who got to be here for the weekend. I'll post more pictures of the non-explosive fun later.

New Camera

We got a new camera last Saturday.....and I've already taken over 700 pictures..... yeah. Sad, isn't it? I love love LOVE my camera!! I'll download pictures soon.

We had a great visit with Mike's folks in KC this past weekend. We got up there on Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday morning. We got lots of stuff in over the few days we were there. Amazingly enough, I got pictures of all that, too. :) I'll post those later as well.

And just a side note, I love watching Barefoot Contessa. Not that I would ever make anything that she makes, but for whatever reason, she's just the most calming person. I get so relaxed just watching her and listening to her talk about whatever gourmet thing she's making.

Tonight is the final four of the Bachelorette. It's hometown dates tonight. I've got my favorites and I'm going to go ahead, just by what few previews I've seen for tonight's episode, and say that Graham is who she's sending packing. She's got major physical chemistry with him, but I think she's gonna see that she needs more than what he can give her emotionally. Just my guess. We'll find out for sure in a few hours. Be sure to check out Lincee's recap tomorrow at www.ihategreenbeans.com. Absolutely freakin' hysterical!!!

I watched Fool's Gold on Friday night and Juno last night. Fool's Gold was ok. Of course it has my Matthew in it and he's just eye candy for any girl. Juno was surprisingly good. I found myself getting really caught up in the story. Mike watched it with me just because he likes the music of the movie. I'm pretty sure he hated the movie, though. Oh well. I had to sit through most of Meet the Spartans with him until I just literally was bored to sleep. I've got more movies on my list of things I need to see and since I have the house to myself (except of course for the little people running around here), I'm going to get in a movie or two before my other half returns and reclaims the TV.

More later, Peeps.

....It's Pouring.....

That old cliche, when it rains it pours - yeah, well - welcome to my world right now.

Saturday night after I downloaded all my pictures from our hike, I had my camera sitting on the arm of my chair...... yeah, you know what's coming. It fell. I'm not sure what happened to it, but it no longer works. I get a "zoom error" message when I try to turn it on. I'm going to have to take it to the camera shop here in town to see if they can fix it. I'm hoping it's something simple, but I'm sick about it.

Yesterday, I locked my keys in my car. That would be the THIRD time I've done that since I've had this van. The first was 4 years ago about this same time and Rachel was in the car. The second time was last year about this time and Rachel, again, was in the car. Yesterday, because God decided to take it easy on me, Rachel (nor any of my other children) were locked in my car along with my keys and cell phone. I was at Wendy's with some friends I'd brought with me. We were getting lunch for my girls and a couple other ladies. I used Wendy's handy dandy cordless to call Tanner's mom (who works at the police department, which has been a helpful tidbit more than once) and beg for her to send a nice officer to my rescue. Said officer was apparently the only one on duty then who had the tools for unlocking vehicles of idiots who'd locked their keys in their car - and he was clear up in Bentonville getting a prisoner. So, I got to spend a little extra time in the Wendy's parking lot doing some serious people watching. I do have to say that a college age girl was the only one that offered any help. She asked if I needed a ride and said she noticed I'd been there for quite a while. There are still nice people in the world and this day it came in the form of a young girl. Oh, and another thing that makes this even better is I called up to the church to see if someone could come get my other passengers so they could get back to VBS preparations and so my girls could get their lunch and after 15 minutes had passed, I again used Wendy's handy dandy cordless to call back up to see if they'd sent anyone yet. They had........ to the other Wendy's in town. As I was on the phone figuring out what to do, another one of our teachers walked in the door and saved the day for my passengers. Thanks to Julie, the lunches weren't frigid when they were delivered to the hungry people back at church. The nice officer arrived after I'd been enjoying Wendy's for about an hour or so (should have gone back inside to get a refill on my Diet Coke now that I think about it) and went straight to work on trying to get my car unlocked. He tried his first tool and worked with it for a few minutes and seemed to be having quite a time getting it to do anything and about a minute into him working with the lock he got a call from I'm assuming his wife. They had a discussion for a bit and once he ended the call, I realized that little tool was stuck in my door. He left it in there and said I could work on it if I wanted to and that he'd come back to get it out later. He was supposed to come by my house last night, but didn't. Was supposed to come by my house today..... didn't. Shelly (Tanner's mom) had to find another officer on duty tonight to come by the ball fields where Tanner was playing to get the gadget out of the door. He was successful, and we all said Hallelujah! I no longer have to drive with a Slim Jim sticking out of the driver's side window. Thank you Shelly for all you did to help! Don't know what I would have done without you!! Yeah, I do - I would have had to call a lock smith and dealt with all that crap. Ugh. SOOOO glad I didn't have to do that. Plus, the Slim Jim sure was a conversation starter and a fun story to be able to tell now.

And then today, I was working on some bill paying. I'd been using a trial version of Microsoft Money to see if I liked it. I'd had another version, but it was on our old computer that we gave to my mom. I didn't have one on our new computer, so I had to download something or buy something to retrieve all my files from our previous version. The trial expired yesterday, so I went online today to download the actual product so I could continue with my finances. I hadn't used the particular version to the extent I thought necessary to spend that much money, so I decided to buy the most basic version. Only now none of my files from the trial version will download to the basic!! UGH!!!! So, I can't get to any of my files right now. I've gone online to cancel that request to use the basic and will go back and buy the fancier version.

I guess you could say I've had better days or series of days. I'm hoping that things will start to work themselves back out. I'm tired. I'm drained mentally. Things definitely could be worse, but gosh, I hope I don't have to go there.

Looks like Obama clinched the Democratic nom. Apparently things are still pouring.........

Here are a few pictures from our hike to Devil's Den today...

Porter rode in his little backpack behind Daddy and did a GREAT job!

Rachel climed up on this rock and when she turned around and saw my camera, this is what she did. You think that kid's had her picture taken a time or two?

And let me just say that this 12 year old little diva thought she was all that and then some getting to walk ahead of the rest of us. She attempted to go in a couple caves, but didn't make it very far partly because of fear of the dark and unknown and then also because of the mud. And this was the only picture I could get of her that wasn't from the backside. She was not about to stay put for too long or, God forbid, walk with the rest of us. Oh, no, dear friends. It's all about being 12 and being "mature" enough to walk ahead of the pack to "check things out".

And then before too long, Daddy says, "I've got a head down here - a head down..." The little man had seen his last tree for the afternoon.

Also we had a garage sale here this morning. In total, we did really well. It was a nice time visiting with girlfriends while getting rid of a TON of junk. Although you know what they say about one man's trash being another's treasure. That sure was the case today. You see ALL kinds of people at garage sales. For as much as I enjoy people watching, it was total pleasure for me to see and visit with all the various people that came by to take a gander at our offerings.

So with the garage sale and getting up early for that and then leaving shortly after all the leftovers were packed up and donated to the Salvation Army to go hiking a Devil's Den for a couple hours, Mommy is one tired lady right now. I'm watching "13 Going On 30" on TV and am about to hit the bathtub for a little relaxation. Tomorrow will definitely be the day of rest for this chick!