In the back seat...

The crying,

 on the way home from Cali,

 in the backseat,

not my friend. 

A phone call from Grandpa that calmed and silenced her.

Definitely my friend.

Now if she would have just held the phone...

Did I ever mention...?

You ought to know by now that we have a new truck.

What you may not know by now is why.

Well the story goes like this:

We drove to San Diego, California.

We drove our white, Ford, bi-fuel, truck.

Superman loves/loved that truck.

He loves that it is bi-fuel.

More specifically he loves natural gas.

Me, I think natural gas stinks.

Superman insisted on driving it because we would spend a lot less using natural gas.

Well the problem with natural gas is it does not give your car/truck as much power as gasoline.

I begged Superman to just let us take our pontiac sedan.

I begged!

But he's the man and usually gets what he has decided he wants.

(Something that has proven time and again to be one of the things I love most about him)

So of course we drove the truck.

We left late afternoon on a Wednesday.

Our plan being to drive to Las Vegas, stay there for the night, 

and drive the rest of the way the next morning.

Between here and Las Vegas there are more than a few long tiring uphill hills.

Our bi-fuel truck huffed up them.

Again and again and again.

After a few of them our truck was pretty worn out.

Power and energy waning.

But we made it to Vegas all in one piece.

And after a nights sleep we headed out again in the hot hot morning sun.

As we drove along Superman mentioned to me several times 

that he thought there might be something not quite right with the trucks engine.

It just wasn't running the way it ought to be.

Well I don't do well with this kind of news when we happen to be in the middle of the mohave dessert.

I started to slowly panic.

We got off the freeway in a small town,
that I don't remember the name of,
to fill up with gasoline and natural gas.

Superman decided to check under the hood.

It wouldn't have taken an expert to see the problem.

There were a couple of hoses that had disconnected.

So he looked around for someone who could connect them.

We went to several different repair shops, and they all said the same thing.

"We are pussies and we don't dare to come anywhere near your 

natural gas truck as it might explode and kill us.  Waaaaaahaaaaaa!"

Or along those lines anyway.

Each time he heard that, Superman would roll his eyes and look for the next shop.

He finally found a place about a hundred miles away.

Our truck made it, without blowing up.

I was infuriated at this point.

The stress of the unknown doing me in.

Anxiety+stress+anger= one crazy lady

We reached the place not afraid to fix our truck.

While they fixed it, Superman took us to some sort of miniature theme park.

With an arcade, miniature golf, and miniature rides.

Had I not been crazy I would have been like:

"Kids check it out!!!  We have struck gold!!!  Woooohooooo!!!!" 

I wish that had been the case, but instead I walked around with a stick up my ass refusing to have fun.

How much of a bitch am I?

Well the truck got fixed easily and we made our way to and all around San Diego.

And then back home again.

And as we sat in traffic the last few miles to our house Superman announced to me that we were going to get a new vehicle.

I wasn't sure I really believed him,

but being the man who gets what he wants...

He followed through on that promise.

I'm grateful.

:)

Naked people?

Yesterday I did a lot of driving around.

More than usual.

I'm thinking I am more motivated to drive around since I get to do it in a 

fancy 

*CLEAN* 

new vehicle.

So I was driving around a lot.

At dinner time, there were no plans to go anywhere.

Nothing to do except make dinner.

(which I did NOT want to do, 

seriously, 

making dinner has become so stressful 

I really would have rather died than cook)

Then by some God granted miracle I decided to listen to my voicemail.  

Something I don't do regularly because with my kids yelling at me, I can't hear a thing, 

which makes calling my voicemail often a waist of time.

But I called it, and I got a message from my motherinlaw,

she said to come to Ben's last baseball game which was in Salem.

I was like,

"Kids!  Get in the truck were going for another drive!  Woohoo!!!"

So off we went.

I thought I knew where I was going.

I was certain of it.

But when we were driving down some weird lonely road to no where I was like,

"Crap!"

I mean I didn't want to get murdered in that strange place.

I mean that would be gross and scary.....

 I ended up calling my motherinlaw, got directions,

and finally found my way.

Now here is the interesting part that has me wondering about the town of Salem.

While we were lost I pulled up next to a gas station.

(incidentally I was headed in the right direction at that point)

It was a Chevron with a Burger King.

As I sat studying my google map,

 Bear exclaims,

"Whoa!  That guy is naked!"

I was naturally like, 

"What!  Where?"

I didn't see him.

I thought,

Oh, he probably just had his shirt off.  That isn't that uncommon.

I forgot about it, turned around, and got lost again.

Bear couldn't stop talking about this naked guy.

When he said,

"I just can't believe he was walking around with out even underwear on!"

I didn't know what to say so I just said,

"I know, crazy!"

Meanwhile I was freaking out a little bit.

That's when I was driving down that lonely road to no where in a town 

where guys walk into Burger King naked. 

What the hell do you do with information like that....

Clearly I blog about it...

Well we finally managed to make it to the ball game.

The naked guy sitting anxiously in the back of my mind.

We made it through the baseball game with out sighting another naked guy...

Somehow I was talked into going over to play at the salem pond park down the way.

Which proved to be a mistake of monstrously stinky proportions.

But that is another story.

The point is,

 I have a whole new perception of the city of Salem.

I won't quit my day job...

It took me an entire year+ to get this table finished.

It sat in my basement for countless months.

Then it sat in my garage for even more months.

Taking up all our parking space in there.

That being the reason our car has sat on our driveway for so long.

I spent many freezing nights in my garage sanding.

I spent many burning hot suffocating days in my garage sanding.

I took way to long just sanding.

I couldn't decide if I should stain it.

And if I did stain it,

I couldn't decide what color to stain it.

I couldn't decide if I should paint it.

And if I did paint it,

I couldn't decide what color to paint it.

After a million and a half ideas floated unused in and out of my head I finally came up with this:

Black with turquoise crackles.

I painted, and painted, and painted.

Then I painted some more.

And after that I managed to laquer.

Even though it sits in my dining room it's still not quite finished.

The laquer needs a bit of polishing.

It isn't perfect.

Anyone else could have done a better job.

But I love the way it turned out.

I love the table,

I love the benches,

I love the history.

I LOVE IT!!!

:D

They say "you can't go home", but we did...

We headed home from San Diego early Wednesday morning.

After a few hours of driving we were surprised to see the traffic start to congest.

It wasn't long before traffic was at a complete standstill.

We were like, 

what,

huh,

why here,

why now.

It seemed like a strange place for traffic to stop. 

After a few seconds of thought we decided it must be some sort of 

automobile accident.

We weren't surprised to find that we were right.

We were surprised to find that it was a single car at the top of the hill involved in the accident,

and even more surprised by the fact that it was engulfed in flames.

(It seriously was, I just didn't take my picture at the right moment.)

We were further surprised to find that said car has started the whole hillside on fire.

It was crazy,
we didn't even see or smell smoke until we'd reached the top of the hill.

We decided that the car must have overheated on it's way up the hill...
I mean SERIOUSLY OVERHEATED.
Crazy.

FORE!!! NEVERMIND!!!

When it comes to playing golf I totally rock!

I mean really, check out my swing.

Perfect form with my:

Arms back and wrists angled up.

Head down,

thumbs up.

 

 Knees bent, 

butt out.

Club swinging towards the ball.

Club passing right over the ball.

And check out that follow through.

Man I can't even see where the ball went.

I am sure it sailed way out there,

probably a hole it one.

                                        

Golf ball finally sighted by my incredible eagle eyes.

I pick it up and give it a good talking to.

 

I am just going to go right ahead and blame that miss on the fact that I am using a wood club in the middle of the fairway without a tee.

Of course that was by choice.....

Welcome to the family...

Now that you are back from your honeymoon vacation let me just say...

Welcome to the family Aaron!

Are you intrigued...

Well you ought to know by now that I love a good intrigue :D

Besides how else can I get people to visit my blog, lol!

So we have a new baby joining our family.

It's not what I said I wanted.

It is what Superman wanted.

And well he is the head of the household and does bring home the bacon, so...

So I have come to accept it.

And truth be told I am a whole lot happier than I thought I'd be about it.

At this point it is absolutely impossible to hide it so there is no keeping it a secret and I might as well get it out into the open for all to know.

Are you ready,

Are you really really ready for this?

We just got a
Brand New Truck!!!

As much as I wanted a van,

I've decided this is a whole lot better.

Hotter too.

:D

What do you think, does it look good on me?

And yes it makes me feel:

a little queasy, nauseated, light headed, dizzy, anxious, scared, and at the same time really excited!

Queasy and nauseated

because it's gonna cost a lot of money.

Light headed and dizzy

because I just can't believe it.

Anxious and scared

again because of the money.

and 

really excited for obvious reasons 

;D

To the beach...

We went all the way to California just for the beach.

We actually went to the beach all of three times.

We actually played in the sand and waves twice.

I really wish we had gone more, but it's my own fault.

I insisted that I did NOT want to go to the beach on Saturday and Sunday.

I was sure it would be way to packed to be able to enjoy it.

So we went to the beach.

Our first beach adventure was at La Jolla (pronounced "la hoy-ya")

After driving around for an hour we found the beach,

then after another hour we found an awesome parking spot.

We simply had to get out of the truck and walk down some stairs to stand at the oceans very edge.

*I was in heaven*

First thing was first.

I wanted to build a sand castle with my kids.

It wasn't the most fantastical sand castle ever built, but we built it together.

Of course Lyon and Fenix lost interest very quickly.

They loved bringing buckets of water up from the ocean to pour onto the dry sand.

It wasn't long before we ventured into the waves.

The water was brrrrrr, so cold.

I stepped into the water as it smoothly slid up the sand, licking it with its cold and brazen tongue.

I immediately thought it was way too cold to swim in.

Still the waves were calling to us and one by one we fell into the oceans spell.

I think Superman is the only one who didn't actually swim.

Though he did take our kids and helped them to swim with the waves as they rolled in over their heads.

As for me, I took the plunge.

I walked out into the far reaching waist deep water waiting for just the right wave.

The water built up into white screaming hills, grasping out desperately for the dry land.

I caught hold of it racing with it as it tumbled into nothing.

Again and again.

I used up all my strength all my energy.

And when I had nothing left the ocean kept right on going.

I would have loved to stay until sunset, but stomachs and kids don't allow for that kind of thing.

We left the beach with smiles on our faces,

the hot smell of our skin burning,

and a sadness in our hearts that will live there until we find ourselves at the waters edge again.

If only I'd thought of this sooner...

Well Fenix, like most children, is a curious climber.

She climbs into everything.

The cupboards,

shelves,

behind the couch. 

She loves to climb into the bouncer she got for Christmas two years ago

 that now sits underneath a table in my office.

She always gets stuck in it and good grief it is difficult trying to maneuver her out.

It's like trying to deliver a shoulder dystocia baby...

Yep Fenix likes to get herself into a tight spot.

This one I wish I'd seen earlier:

Knowing she could fit in that basket while Lyon sat in the seat, 

man that would have come in handy...

;D

And Bear says...

This morning Bear was getting dressed 

and I was surprised that he chose a dress shirt to wear with his jeans.

I asked him why he was wearing that kind of shirt.

He answered:

"Because I am going to go out and sale my drawings to the neighbors and I want to look nice."

Or something right along those lines anyway.

You see, Bear wants to earn some money so he can buy himself and Lyon a 

"Beyblade".

So he decided that it would be a good idea to draw some pictures 

and then go door to door selling them for a dollar a piece.

Now I would probably buy one,

 my neighbors though, 

lol, 

I don't know...