Livin’ Life On The Lamb

Here are the belated pics from the fair.

Well, it happened. The tell-tale sign of the beginning of summer: I got burnt. BAD. For some reason, I can’t just gradually tan throughout the summer. I’ve got to get that really bad, miserable, I-totally-just-want-to-die-please-find-some-way-to-sleep-without-laying-on-my-back burn, and then I might, MIGHT, get some color by the end of October. Highly unlikely, but everyone has their dreams, right?

During the week when I work out, Mr. B has to go see the babysitter in the gym for an hour or two. We’ve had our good days and our bad days with him going to see the sitter, but he has been a golden child since I started bribing him with “Swim Fridays”. If he’s good all week and uses his manners and shares the toys and uses nice words and does other nearly impossible things for a three-year-old, we bring our swimmies and our snacks and splash away for an hour or two. Thing is, I go to work out at 8 a.m., so we are in the pool by 9:15 and out by 10:30 or so.

Today, we (girls from the mom’s group and I) were supposed to meet at 10 a.m. to swim and have a picnic lunch - fun, huh? But I was late. 45 minutes late to be exact. What?!? I HAD to stop and get a Dr. Pepper at the gas station because, hello? Swimming and soda pop? It’s like, you know…it’s just like those other things that go together…like…ok, fine. Like peas and carrots, all right? Then they are re-paving the freeway and I was stuck in traffic also. Blah, blah, blah, huh?

Soooo…10:45 until we ate at 12:00. Then a little break and back in the pool we went. Mr. B had two layers of SPF 60 on, but I just quickly sprayed some SPF 15 on and away I went. You can actually see where the sunscreen hit and where it didn’t. I have two white patches on my shoulders where the sunscreen was, a white line where my suit went, and a HUGE patch of red accross my back.

I feel like I’ve been cooked. Just thought I’d let you know that I might not be able to sit up to post for a few days. Besides, there sure isn’t much going on in my life right now anyway. Except for the stimulus check. That was an exciting way to start the day. But that’s all for now. Hope everyone else’s summer is off to a wicked good start like mine!!

Or something like that. That what Templeton the Rat sang on the first Charlotte’s Web. Since Gila Man has Sunday and Monday off, we were trying to plan a fun (and cheap) family activity that we could do. Now the zoo is always a given, you never have to ask us twice to head up to the big city and visit the zoo. But I happened to go online and find out the dates of our (semi) local fair. Monday was family day - $2.00 parking, $2.00 admission, and Mr. B was FREE! WE LOVE THE FAIR! The sights, the smells, the shows, the rides, and of course, the food!

Something about going to the fair makes me happy. Silly, I know. But I remember going to the fair as a kid and participating in what seemed like EVERY event in the livestock barn. Growing up, we had a small farm since I was born. Um, not that me being born meant that my parents suddenly had a farm…but one of my earliest memories is looking out the sliding glass door in the back of our little home and seeing (what seemed to me) thousands of little fluffy chicks. My dad went to go buy a few and ended up filling his hatchback Honda Civic with flats and flats of chicks.

When I grew older, nothing changed; I remember all the work we had to put in to get all of our animals ready for the show. You could always tell which kids waited until a week before the fair to put a collar on their animals. There was walking and brushing and trimming and putting on the coats so they don’t get sick because we just chopped off all their hair and making sure that everyone was ready to go.

Then we would pack up the travel trailer with everything a family of five could live on for 3 or 4 days, pack up the horse trailer with all the critters (mostly goats, we did chickens, rabbits, pigs, and sheep at the local fairs), and head to the BIG CITY! Once we were there, we would, of course, have to unpack everything and everyone and get the critters ready to show.

I remember going into the pens where the goats were kept and just hanging out because it was incredible to see the looks on the city folk’s and the little kids faces when they saw a goat for the first time. It was soooo cool to actually have someone ask ME a question about the animals and be able to answer them and be right!

I remember that the nights in the travel trailer were unbearably freezing and the days incredibly hot.

I remember that the food we packed was never quite as scrumptious as that greasy, nasty, overpriced food at the fair was.

I remember helping to milk the goats after the show and squirting the warm, creamy milk directly into my mouth (much to the shock or delight of the city folk).

I also remember snacking on the goat grain in between meals. Really. The corn was yummy!

I remember running off as soon as my brother and I could so we could check out the runway and covet the dorky stuffed animals hanging everywhere.

I rememeber the amazing feeling of pride as we drove home from the fair - dirty, smelly, tired and just plain wore out - but with a stack of ribbons to rival just about anybody…most of them blue!

So, I get a little nostalgic when I go back to the fair that I spent so much time at as a child. There’s also something really, really, cool about bringing my child there to build memories as well. Not the same kind, certainly the more carefree-I-don’t-care-what-time-the-goats-have-to-be-ringside-for-the-yearling-class, but he sure did want to put those baby goats in the stroller to take them home “so they won’t be lonely”, he said. I guess we are all still building memories, though they might be a little different…here’s an example…Gila Man wants this to be this year’s family photo…what do you think?

When Noah and I were in Tucson for his last eye appointment, we had a little time to kill so we ended up in the Bookman’s up the road from the Doctor’s Office. I told Noah he could choose one book and one movie, so he did. As I was browsing the movie selection, I saw that all their VHS movies were HALF OFF!! Well, that was all I needed to stop browsing and start LOOKING!

After half an hour of deliberating, Noah chose “Chicken Run” (Leslie would have loved that!) and I chose “The Princess Bride“.

Now, the last time I saw Princess Bride was when I was a Junior in high school over at my boyfriend’s house, sitting on the sofa in his living room, trying not to notice the glaring looks coming from his mom every few seconds. I thought this was going to be a great adventure movie, a movie filled with passion, and oh, I don’t know…SOMETHING. Needless to say, I thought it was the dumbest movie I had ever seen and told everyone in the room that I hated it. I was promtly driven home.

Fast foward a few years and here I am on my very own sofa, in my very own home, laughing histerically at this movie. It is funny and witty and full of romance and adventure and FUN! The giant? So cute even though you can’t understand half of what he’s saying. And the ROUS? UGLY! And that guy at the end performing the wedding ceremony? Just about the funniest scene in a movie - ever. What was I thinking? Who knows what the inner-workings of the teenage brain are. Mine, for sure, was not on track. Because this movie? Has now gone down as one of my all-time favorites.

Yep, after this, we have had a SLEW of “ies”. We’ve been sickies, sillies, saddies, maddies, laughies, and loads of others that are just a little to silly to say. But today’s was the cake topper.

We were getting out of the car and Noah knew that he had to go inside and take off his “nice” shoes off and get his “play” shoes on if he wanted to go out and play in the backyard. When he came back out in the garage, Helaman and I were still in the car talking about the plans we have for the house and Noah climbed into Helaman’s lap to see what we were doing. We figured we should get started, so we climbed out of the car, and Noah thought he should get out on my side “Because he was closer” to my side of the car. Sheesh.

As he scooted over my seat, his elbow accidently hit the steering wheel and honked the horn.
“LOOK, Momma! I’m honking the horn! It works even if the car is off! Look! I’m honking the horn A LOT! I’m a horn honker! I’m a HORNIE! WE can be hornies, Momma! Let’s be hornies! Come honk the horn!”

“I have an idea,” said Helaman.
“You go be a hornie in your bedroom, and Momma and Daddy will be hornies in our room!”

It didn’t work. There aren’t any horns in Noah’s room…gonna have to do something about that…

Well, I’m FINALLY back from doing all that it is that I do around here. I, uh, can’t go into detail or anything, because I haven’t got the time. Because I’m so busy doing what I’m doing, ya know. Ahem…anyway, I’m back and I know that all my adoring fans have missed our friendly little visits. :0)

Our little family has been crazy busy with weddings, family, and doctor’s appointments lately, so I’m sorry about the delay. Helaman is finally home, though, and it’s nice to have him around to help with all the things that I really don’t want to do - like take out the trash and pick up dog poop. But it’s also nice to sleep next to him again and talk to him again, and laugh with him again, and argue with him again, and eat with him again. All those important things. Speaking of talking with each other, we DID have to have a little talk about something quite serious….

Fluff is gone. I know, I know. It’s hard to believe that the mangy sweet little cotton-pickin-biting-bird dear is gone. Squeak was the first to go - he thought he was all smart and could get out of his cage whenever he wanted, whether the cats were around or not. And I guess they were around last week.

Then we went outside yesterday and found that the lid of Fluff’s cage had been taken off and that he was gone. The tell-tale blue feathers in the front yard were the only explanation we needed to know that Fluff was no longer a part of this world. Now were are parakeetless people, pondering the meaning of life (and how we are going to tell Noah).

I told Noah first, telling him that Fluff went to go see Squeak up in Heaven and live with Heavenly Father from now on. Noah said that he would miss Fluff and that he was sad that Fluff wasn’t around anymore, but he also knew Heavenly Father would take good care of his birdies. It was really sweet. But the next day, unknown to me, Daddy told him what REALLY happened to little Fluff. When I went outside that morning, there were Noah, Daddy, and Bobby, the cat sitting on the front porch, playing with some tools.
“Momma,” Noah said, “is Heaven in Bobby’s tummy?”
“No, sweetheart! That’s silly! Why would Heaven be in Bobby’s tummy?” I replied.
“Cuz you said Fluff went to Heaven, and Daddy said that Fluff is in Bobby’s tummy. I didn’t know that Bobby could get WAAAY up to Heaven!”

Good grief! We’ve got to get our defences together - against our 3-year-old!

 Although it’s always been really easy to pick on Michael because he was born on April Fool’s Day, this year, we seem to be really busy with school, work, kids, and life, so there isn’t much for me to pick on when it comes to him. I mean, what am I gonna say?

“Hey, mega-dork! Ya know, only complete LOSERS graduate from the U of A!”

Or;

“Way to go! It’s not like you’ve been busy with your jobs or keeping tenants in your two rental houses or anything. I mean, c’mon! Get a life!”

Nope, neither of those are really pick-on-worthy, and since he is too old to fall for the “you are so totally adopted” story, I guess we’ll just have to make do with a cute picture of when he was a sweet little boy, and a picture of what the smart-aleck looks like today. I’m proud of ya, little bro! Happy Birthday!!!