Mama On The Move

The kids and I are leaving to go on a trip to Virginia tomorrow. We will be gone for two weeks, and I have no idea how much Internet access I will have while we're gone. So don't think that I've quit blogging! I'll be back! In the mean time, here is a really funny site you might enjoy. It's really messed up cakes. I laughed so hard my sides hurt while I was perusing this site. http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ And from that one, I followed a link to this one: http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/ Now I know we can't all be really bothered when we see punctuation misused on public signs (it drives me nuts, just ask my family). But if you liked the book "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" then this site is for YOU. There is even a little video clip of Jon Stewart a little ways down the page that is worth watching for four minutes and twenty seconds to get to his bit about quotation marks. Pray for me to have a safe trip! The last one was not so great for the car!

Okay, normally the dentist is not my favorite place to spend an hour. Getting my teeth cleaned is just not fun. At times it's downright "uncomfortable" which is dentist talk for "this is going to hurt like hell". And there's always the guilt that I haven't been flossing enough and they can tell. BUT..... I have found THE dentist. The dentist everyone should go to. All dentist experiences should be like this one. On Monday, all three kids had their cleanings scheduled so I took them to the new dentist. Just off the waiting room was a room with video games in it for the kids to play while they wait. Cool. The kids were pleased. But we've seen that at other dentist offices, so it was nothing too surprising. Then they took all three kids back at once. They had one long room of dentist chairs and each one was in a solid bright color. There were bright quilts hanging on all the walls. It was a very cheerful room. Over each chair, flat up against the ceili...

I took Rigger out for a walk yesterday. He likes a good walk, but he is such a scaredy cat (for a dog). I figured he needed some time to really wander around, so we went a little farther than we usually do. We came to a fenced in yard with two small, yappy terriers in it. They, of course, became hysterical at the sight of Rigger like small, yappy terrorists. Usually, Rigger runs from anything noisy. He is NOT the alpha dog around here, and he never forgets that, especially when dealing with other dogs. But for some reason, these little ankle biters fascinated him. He trotted right over to their chain link fence for a good sniff which sent the terrorist into a near rabid state. They began racing back and forth on their side of the fence as though this would help them somehow. Rigger found this behavior very exciting and he decided to walk down the length of fence and see what was so thrilling that made these two dogs want to run down there over and over and over. We made it about halfwa...

A girl showed up at our door and asked if Ben could come out. He says they are "just friends" and that he doesn't like her "like that". I pointed out that girls don't usually show up at a boy's house and ask them to come out unless she likes the boy "like that". He says all her friends just moved away. Uh-huh. Either he is clueless, or he thinks I am. Not sure which. She has come by the last two days in a row and asked him to come out. After the second time, I had a talk with him. I told him they need to have a third person with them at all times. I know they are just walking around the neighborhood talking, but there are reputations to consider. If they go around a corner, or behind a tree, or into some shade, anyone who sees them might think "typical teen" thoughts. I told him he needs to be mindful of her reputation, and of the fact that her parents may come hunt him down if they think (or hear) anything "teenagery" is go...

And now we return to our reguarly scheduled blog..... Okay, before I had to switch gears, I was going to write some more about what happended to us at the beach. It was probably one of the most magnificent things that has ever happened to me! We went to the beach one day, just my mother, my sister, Emily, Katie and me. Ben was with his cousins and of course Kerry was back here in Kansas. We were just building sandcastles and playing in the surf. A group of several people came by with a seine net. A seine net is a very long net with a long pole at each end. Several people have to hold it and walk through the water with it to catch fish, crabs, and shrimp. It's like sifting for seafood. So these folks are seining and a school of dolphins comes up. Cool! We're watching the dolphins swim around and these folks offer us some fish out of their net to feed the dolphin s! I know ! So we snatch up the fish and head out into the waves and dad gum if those dolphins didn't swim right u...

Yesterday was my darling daughter's eleventh birthday. We were supposed to be at Sea World for her special day, but since our car decided to abandon us and take it's own vacation at Aamco (which apparently is a spa for transmissions) we decided to go a local water park. It has an awsome area that is just like a giant tub toy. I has great slides on it and a giant bucket that dumps over it every few minutes. It also has spinning wheels, bells and water guns. All the kids (including the big kids) have a great time in it. Emily made her own cake - a chocolate swirl cheescake. She discovered during the party that she still doesn't like cheesecake. I think she just thought the picture looked so good, she was sure to like it

We spent a week on Jekyll Island for our vacation this year. Fortunately I have a friend from high school, Lisa, who has a house on St. Simons Island which is right next door to Jekyll. We met her on the pier at St Simons and she took us crabbing. The girls got a kick out of pulling up the nets and checking for edible crabs, and throwing back the hermit crabs. Then Lisa took us down to the beach to teach us a dying sport - "Stringing" crab. Usually we hang a basket off the pier with some raw chicken in it and you wait for a hungry crab to come nibble on the chicken. Then you haul the basket up and - voila ! - dinner! Stringing crab is more challenging than using a basket. In this sport, you tie the chicken to a heavy twine and toss it out into the water from the beach. You give the crab time to get to it, then you catch him with a net. Not easy, but gives the crab a sporting chance. Unfortunately the crabs were on to us and we did not catch any with the stringing method, alth...

I've been on vacation for two weeks now, but I am finally home. I drove to Georgia with the kids, picked up my mother, then met a whole crowd of family members at the beach for a week. I have some pretty good stories to tell, but it will take days so, I'll do it a little at a time. For now, I'm going to start with the ending because it's consuming all my thoughts right now. The drive back from Georgia takes about 16 hours. We have to stop and spend the night somewhere because I'm the only one driving and I've got to have a break. If Kerry were with me, we could trade off a lot and maybe do it in one day. On the first day, we had left Georgia and were somewhere in Tennessee when my engine light came on. Oh no! I'm a zillion miles from anyone I know! Why couldn't this happen when I was near family? So I called Kerry and asked if he thought I should stop at a town and have the engine checked out. The engine was not running hot and there were no other notice...