Because the weather was so phenomenally gorgeous today – not too cool, not too hot, and because there’s nothing better on a cool night than a hot campfire, I’m inspired to revive one of the first “Monday” posts…
Welcome to our little corner of the web. Grab a spot here by the fire. There’s plenty of room for your camp chair. There’s a cooler over by that Oak Tree, it’s filled with ice cold beer. The one by the Shag Bark Hickory – don’t they make you think of the Flappers from the 1920’s, with their fringe dresses? – anyway, that cooler is filled with soda pop. Plenty of flavors of both, so pick your brew. There’s also some iced tea in the drink cooler under the Maple, and the pot’s on the fire, percolating the coffee. Don’t worry, I didn’t let Joy make it (J).
A fourth cooler, there by the Birch, holds hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks, and shrimp, there are plenty of chips and condiments. And I’ve brought fixin’s for S’mores. The Whirly Pop is filled with popcorn and ready to go. And if it gets chilly, there’s a pile of blankets in the back of the truck. There’s no rain in the forecast, so we’ll be under a sunny sky, all day. And a starry one, if we decide to stay the night.
While you’re here, make yourself comfy. Unburden, tell a joke, vent. We’re friends here, and as long as you keep your language toward each other kind, you can say what you want. You can even swear, if you need to, but not at someone else.
Us Girls..Our Views 
We had a great weekend here 🙂 Between birthdays and the local town festival and the cabin, it was a good time. My 10 year old daughter decided to participate in the lip sync contest on Saturday of Kimball Days and what a success that turned out to be!!! She sang “Love Story” by Taylor Swift and she ended up with 1st place!!!! She had some stiff competition so I was kind of surprised that she won, but it was the props, baby, that put us on top I think 😉 I wish we could include pictures in our comments!
So, after that was done we headed over to the cabin to celebrate Nikki and Sean’s b-day. (If you haven’t see it, scroll back a couple of days and check out the posts). The sun could have stayed out longer, but daiquiri’s in the afternoon never tasted so good! Today we headed into town again for the Kimball Days parade and the kids got lots of candy! I also got to see a good friend, who’s due with her 4th boy in like 2 weeks, and it’s always fun to catch up since we haven’t seen each other all summer. That was about it.
The daiquiri’s were WONDERFUL.
We had a great Saturday. My sister had a 5K race right up the street from us. It was a charity thing and she signed up me and my girls too, even though none of us has ever raced before. They had fun stuff for the kids to play on (jumpy house, inflated slide) and my 8mo niece and her dad were also there. My sister was happy with her time. A while after she got done, it was time for the “kids’ race and family fun walk.” Miss E decided she did not want to run, which put Miss A in a bad mood, but she & I went ahead anyway. We had to take a short cut in order to not miss their swimming lesson. But we did some real moving and crossed the finish line (even if it wasn’t official). It was cool to have all the people telling my kid “good job, yay,” etc. Maybe it psyched her up for the next time, I don’t know. (She was by far the littlest “contestant,” so she has plenty of time to perfect her technique, LOL.)
Saturday was my kids’ last swimming lesson for the summer. They got their certificate and it says they have mastered most of the stuff to move to the next level, but not everything. They have to learn to put their head under the water longer. So I plan to put them back in Preschool I in the fall. After the swimming lesson, we had lunch with my sister & her family. (How do I get her to stop paying for our meals? She sneaks even when I have the receipt in my pocket. I had some coupons and they didn’t even use them because of the sneaking. Ugh. I would like to treat sometimes too!).
After naps/work, we went to my parents’ house and then to their county fair. It was pretty late, but that was actually a good thing. The weather was perfect and the kids didn’t have to wait in any lines (we were there til midnight). They rode ponies and a ton of rides, saw lots of animals, watched a band or two, etc. It was nice. Then we ended up being at my parents’ house until 3am because my dad was teaching my daughter paper airplane technique and then my mom had them watch the Wizard of Oz for the 100th time. Needless to say, we slept in this morning – which was also really nice, considering I almost never get to do that. Then my sister came to babysit and it was pretty much back to our normal life.
We finally scheduled someone to come and fix the roof and block the critters from coming into the basement. They are supposedly going to do the work next weekend. I will feel a lot better once I can stop worrying about skunks, critter poo, and rabies.
This evening I was getting ready to take the girls for a walk. While I was changing, our houseguest took them out and the next thing I know, they have both wiped out on their trikes at the bottom of our steep driveway. I have told the girls to keep the trikes in the backyard because I don’t need them barreling down uncontrollably into the street or busting their heads open. Silly me! As soon as the houseguest realized I wasn’t thrilled with the situation, he ducked back into the house to watch TV. Grr! Why do some people meddle in things that are not their business? And then when something happens like that, shouldn’t they say something like “sorry”?
Well, gotta go for now – work conference – but may be back later.
Other than the tumbling down the driveway, it sounds like you had a really good weekend too. I think it’s a really good idea to put A&E in swimming lessons again this fall if you can make it work. When things are still fresh in their minds they are bound to do better. There won’t be any of that “warming up to it.”
I’ll bet your so glad to be getting the critters out of the house. One less worry is always a good things.
Most of all I’m so glad you made it to your county fair and your parents got to spend some time with the girls.
Oh yeah, the REALLY big news: I got all caught up on Rush Limbaugh’s transcripts!! I have been behind for so long. I am still behind on my work, but we must have priorities, mustn’t we?
I’ll have some coffee..thanks! I just wanted to say I enjoy hanging out w/ you guys. you are all so down to earth.
Got a riddle for you.
What should you do if you are riding on the back of a giraffe, a hungry lion is chasing you and is about ready to strike?
slide off the back and let him have the giraffe.
The giraffe would kick at the lion and run away, and then you’d be standing there with an angry, hungry lion looking you in the eye.
It’s gotta be some play on words. Can’t think of any, though.
Ok, I’ve revised my thoughts… that steak you’re carrying in your pocket? Now would be a REALLY good time to toss it to the lion.
I just keep thinking you hold on with all you’ve got. More likely than not, the giraffe would kick the crap out of the lion until it went away. Maybe if you’re lucky the giraffe would go into some trees and you could grab onto a branch. Can’t think of much else.
After giving this considerable thought, I think the moral of the story is, don’t ride giraffes while on safari.
Either that or take away the lion’s Union Card. Then he can’t strike.
Ha ha!
I love having coffee with you too DM.
Ditto what Laura said.
🙂 lots of great tries but the answer is this:
You need to get your drunken’ butt off the merry-go round
LOL!! Cute.
We did really have a nice weekend around here. We had really good food. Vicki got great steaks and everything tasted so good. Melissa and Jenny, I need both your recipes. Those mushrooms were excellent Mel. Jenny, you know I LOVE those tomatoes. I’ll put both recipes on the blog here.
It was a total clusterfu*k that I didn’t get to see Trin in her show. We were there, stuff happened and we couldn’t stay. I could kick myself that I didn’t get to see her sing OR win. Way to go my darling girl.
Move to the cabin; it was great. We had a really good time. Came home and watched the DVR’d Vikings game. We won. I hate pre-season but I am married to a man that if they never won all year, our lives would still stop for every single game. Pre-season or Superbowl.
Sunday was GLORIOUS. I worked out in my flowers and trimmed everything front and back and filled all 24 bird feeders and oriole’s and hummingbird feeders. The a/c is still off and what a relief it’s been for me. I don’t even feel like anything is wrong with me when it’s like this. How I can’t wait for summer to be over and fall to hit me in the face.
Glad your Vikings did well. The Bears had their typical showing. Lost the game and an excellent, promising quarterback in one fell swoop. *sigh*
I don’t even want to think about quarterbacks yet.
We lost Caleb Haney. Landed on his shoulder in a bad hit (not illegal, not malicious, just bad). Don’t know how bad he’s hurt yet. Hopefully, it’s just a bruise, and he’ll be fine in a couple weeks. fingers crossed…
I hate to see that happen to any athlete. My fingers are crossed.
I know, whenever I think maybe my kid could be athletic, I think, do I really want her to do that? What are the chances she reaches maturity with all her parts intact?
Just don’t let her be a Chicago Bear. Her chances have just increased a hundredfold!!
Seriously… impose upon her the importance of a good warmup, good stretches, and doing her sport of choice CORRECTLY, rather than following whatever the fad of the day is. Also, when something hurts, it hurts for a reason. Learn the difference between fatigue and injury and respect both. Work *with* your body, rather than against it. Being smart in athletics, like in most things, is the best defense.
Sounds like everyones having lots of Fun. Thats a good thing. I’ve been enjoying the cooler weather here. It feels a little bit like Fall here. It has me a little worried about the TODO list of things to do before the snow flies. I’m sure I have plenty of time. When I see the large V’s of Geese flying over it alway signials to me to get my house in order. Still havn’t been the the Fair yet sould be going this week. I’m looking forward to that. I’m glad your enjoying good health Joy. It really does make all the difference in the world. Glad also that eveyones having so much fun.
I’ve noticed “fall things” too Starla. The birds are moving like crazy. This just feels so good for me to be able to really do things outside again without worrying about having my oxygen tank. The humidity is supposed to rear it’s ugly head again later in the week.
Is Navar getting excited for school to start?
It was a great weekend! The weather could have been warmer. I was so psyched up to swim in the lake all day, bought a swim suit even! It was still fun, relaxing on the pontoon with a drink in my hand and a great friend and wonderful family. It was a relaxing day and night, and I’m glad I didn’t over do it with the drinking! I didn’t want to start out my 30’s on a bad note! Because….Sunday was glorious!!!! I had every window open, cleaned and organized my pantry and kitchen.
The only bad thing that happened it is ended up working on 3 vacuums for an hour! I got 2 out 3 to work! 🙂 Started bad, ended well! I should open my own vacuum shop! LOL
Then we sacked out on the couch and watch a game of the Little League World series. Minnesota advanced on Saturday and they have been kicking butt so that’s obviously who we are rooting for to go all the way!!
And now Monday comes and back to work….have a good day everyone!
I had a pretty laid-back weekend. Steve and Josh are addicted to the pool, so they go every day, rain or shine, sun or clouds. We went yesterday, even though it was cool, and as I stood in the locker room changing into my suit, SNAP!! The shoulder strap broke. Well, stink. So I went and checked in with the boys, and headed to WalMart for a new suit – WM is two minutes from the pool, and I figured I could grab one off the ‘reduced to nuttin’ rack’. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Only if I was a size ZERO, could I buy off the rack!!! The only suit they had that was my size was… please sit for this… a BIKINI!! Can you imagine me in a bikini?? Seriously? And on top of it, it wasn’t even an attractive bikini – purple and neon orange brush-strokes, with black and white for emphasis, and of COURSE, the little brass things clamped on to the straps, for what, I still don’t know. But I considered buying it anyway and wearing a shirt over it for coverage. This is how desperate I was. This was a sort of a “bandeau” top (pausing to let the men catch up…) where the straps come from the center – between “the girls” – and go up around the neck. Then the other straps go around the back and tie there. Only thing that was missing was… actual SUPPORT! I put this abomination on and nearly screamed when I saw myself in the mirror! I swear to you, I think I went blind for a minute.
I put the “suit” back on the rack, drove home, and fixed my own suit. better the devil you know, right? I got back to the pool, suited up, and realized that it really was just too cold to swim. So I sat in the sun and read a TRN (trashy romance novel, for those keeping score), and walked into the shallows once just to cool my legs.
I’m still waiting on a part for my lawn mower – what Nikki is to vacuums (and I used to be) I am now that to my lawn mower. Two weeks ago, I was riding it, and it all of a sudden started smoking and backfiring. Let me tell you, THAT’S an adventure… sitting on a smoking, banging time-bomb. Turns out that a rock got stuck between the blade and the wall of the cover, which caused the blade to stop and the belts to start smoking. The backfiring was just an added bonus.
When I got the rock dislodged, and after I finished my mowing (noticing puffs of smoke still coming from under the hood), I opened the cover and discovered that the hose that vents the oil filter (remember, I’m a girl… be glad you’re not getting “the doohickey attached to the hot can-lookin’ thing on the side of the big noisy hunk of metal) was split, and oil was dripping out and burning off, causing the puffs of smoke. At least I HOPE that’s the problem. So I ordered a new filter-hose. TWO WEEKS AGO. And it’s still not in. And my grass is a good foot high, if not more. Good thing I live in the country where nobody cares! If I was in the suburbs, I’d be evicted by now.
Other than that, it was a good, quiet weekend. And now we’re on the countdown to school. Josh starts a week from today. WOOHOO!!
“I swear to you, I think I went blind for a minute.” Eeee gads, how you make me laugh.
yeah… you weren’t in that dressing room. It was a horror show.
LOL! You gotta wonder what test they have to pass to be a swimsuit designer.
And as for lawn mowing – the first year I had a house (in the suburbs, no less), I never got around to buying a lawn mower. I considered lawn service too expensive. So as the summer went on, you can just imagine our lawn. Eventually one of the neighbors got sick of looking at it and cut it a couple times when we were not home. By the end of the summer, there was no actual grass – just weeds. Needless to say, we’ve had a lawn service ever since.
I always wanted one of those little push things that actually run on human power. Used to use one of those when I was a kid. But what I need more than that is the time to actually go out there every week.
Though, this summer, I’m not craving time outside all that much.
I’m seriously considering erecting a sign that says, “Natural Prairie, Do Not Disturb”, since the place looks like that anyway.