Fawn

A little spotted fawn was in the garden, intrigued by Diego. I managed to step outside without alerting it, and starting taking photos and video on my iPhone.

Then the mama deer came over to see what was going on so Diego decided to head for safety and went under a chair. Smart kitty. Chino just watched the whole thing, quite unconcerned.

Next we were treated to a special sight - the mama started giving the fawn a bath! It was soooo sweet. I was whispering to myself "awwww! how cute!!!" and the fawn was all "geez, are you done all ready! you did that ear 3 times!". I moved my arm and the mama noticed and that was that. She stomped her hoof several times, then she did that snorty thing and they took off for the top of the hill. It was good practice for the baby! Diego nearly had heart failure because all this happened literally a foot away from him, but Chino could have cared less. Love that cat!!

I hope this video comes out better than it did when I viewed it on email. I had to trim it way down. working on the video...... stay tuned!

Little Bit of Nothing

I've been ordered to blog....even if it's about Nothing.

Well, that's about all I got. Let's see how far I can take it. Yes, I can see that smirk on your face. I know I am a wordy gal. But I don't feel well - coming down with a cold - so this one might actually be brief for a change.

Tomorrow is the first day of preschool! And I've got a runny nose that's trying to become a cold. Ugh. Well, I will just max out on sudafed or mucinex or something and power through it. I am looking forward to getting back into the preschool life - especially because this year I get to be ME, ME, ME all three days and won't have to be a teacher on Wednesdays. I have a new schedule which will need some tweaking I'm sure... when I say it is a minute by minute routine, I mean it!

Mike had poker night here on Friday. Grammy was still in San Diego so I watched TV on her side and hung out with Ellie, her cat once I got off work from Coldwater Creek. Neither Mike nor Gib won - bummer! But one of the guys gave the kids Monster Energy lanyards. Nice tip!

Over the weekend we began what I am calling a "soft move" - switching Mariah and Taryn's rooms. Gib and I began the haz-mat clean up. Just kidding, it wasn't bad, you could just tell she had left in a hurry. Kind of like when the circus comes to town and then they pick up and clear out. Then we got to what was under the bed. Now THAT was interesting!!! Boy did we find some doozies there! Funny thing is, I know it hasn't been all that long since the last time T cleaned under there! We sure laughed!! Then I facebooked it. After all, isn't that what a good (notice I didn't say OCD clean freak) mother does?!

All right, enough Nothing for today.

Where Did These Kids Come From?

You know, I could go many places with a title like that....

My daughter the Astrophysicist: Mariah has started 7th grade and has a project on Supernovae. Our favorite part of her project is the cool pictures of exploding stars. They kind of look like tye-dye shirts! She also made the cut of the top 32 students in math and got in the only high school level Algebra class offered. The Algebra teacher is good, but you definitely do things her way if you know what I mean; students must maintain 85% at all times or get dropped. All tests count 50% of the grade. Luckily she likes math and is good at it, so hopefully she won't bomb any tests! The bummer is that Mariah won't have any Art classes this year at all. She has to wait until 8th grade. She is mad about that. But she says hi everyday to the Art teacher and is in the Art Club which meets every other week. Mariah is kind of patiently waiting for us to clean out Taryn's old room and move her into the "currently occupied" part of the upstairs and make the back part a "college student suites". We can then close off the door to the bonus room and save energy and keep it clean, using it only when Indie and Taryn are home, or when Mariah wants to watch TV past her curfew.



My son the comic: Gib has quite the sense of humor. He is always making me laugh. We went to P.F. Changs for take-out dinner one night when it was just me and the kids, and they asked for a bunch of fortune cookies which was a funny story all by itself (mwahaha). We ended up with about 20. I managed to score 3 from my little cookie monsters, and was all excited with my fortunes: You will receive a surprising gift very soon; Look forward to great fortune and a new lease on life; and something about what my heart desired. So I tell Gib "I'm gonna get a fortune! I need to buy a Powerball ticket or something!" and he replies... "or maybe you're just gonna get another fortune cookie". Nice. Actually it was so funny it may have been the laugh of the week if it wasn't for all the stupid Family Guy clips Gib assaulted me with during our drive to Macon. I don't know whether to be glad we went back for my iPhone car charger or not. Gib and I are also finding immense humor in the reaction he gets from one of his new Axe scents. I would describe it as citrus-y with a hint of chocolate. And it draws girls like magnets. Gib says they start sniffing the air going "someone smells REALLY good" and he knows it's him. So he confidently says, "it's me" and pretty soon they reach him and go "It IS you! you smell soooo good!" It's eerie how much this reflects the birthday card. Gib even came up to me last night and had me sniff him just to see what I thought. I could smell it but I wasn't close to passing out in bliss, so we have surmised that female teenage pheromones are more affected or mothers are immune. Thank goodness - who knows what he could get away with otherwise.


My daughter the Party Animal! This photo pretty much says it all. Taryn is having a GREAT time at Missouri Science & Tech. This was taken during Freshman Orientation. Her friend Clayton whom she met at Hit The Ground Running said she was too short to be seen in the photo and scooped her up and put her on his shoulder. You can tell she didn't mind a bit! She loved being tall. The university has it on their web page. Oh yeah. Classes just started but so far so good. Taryn knows quite a few people in the first two days of classes from HGR and through other activities. She is happy and doing well. She and her friend/roomie have the individual suites dorm where you have your own room, 4 people share a common living room/kitchen and a bathroom. She and Katherine have each bought betta fish - Taryn's is named Fishy and is blue. And they have roller blades and mountain bikes to keep them busy when not in classes or fraternizing with frat boys. Not alot of time for gazing at the fish I'm thinking. They had movie night in K's room the other day. Waaay more people in there than I think fire codes allow! But alot of fun!!

My daughter, Big Sister to the world! Indie is coming into her own and it is such a neat thing to see unfolding. She is now an accomplished international traveler, and experienced third world primitive living conditions, but nothing could have prepared her for: The Waterworld Outhouse! She said nothing in Africa was as bad as that. Which is why we girls choose to stay at the resort. We were so happy that Indie, Ricky and Taryn were able to join us for a day at the Scout lake trip. We all had a blast tubing and waterskiing! I took a ton of photos. They'll be up on the blog someday, maybe. Some are on our facebook pages. Now that Indie is back at Mercer she is in the thick of things with her sorority - Alpha Gamma Delta. They are in rush week and when we visited she was put to work interviewing people. Indie is very good at interviewing - both as the interviewee and apparently the interviewer! I expect to hear she will have a little sister in the sorority before too long. Maybe not this year, but I'd be surprised if she doesn't have one next year. It's just not in her nature not to nurture. She has an easy, chill class load this semester which makes her smile!

Today is Open House at preschool, preceded by the ever popular Staff Photo. We have to look extra nice. I am still in my PJ's, so I really must run now. Only a sentence for me and Mike. Mike for some reason is now a travelling man for work. But work is going good, so can't complain. However, he just got back from one quick business trip and now there's another on the horizon! P.F. Changs here we come!!!

Random Thoughts

So today is one of those RARE days that the box on the calendar is EMPTY! Ahhhh, the bliss of it all. School starts this week for Gib and Mariah; Indy and Taryn leave for college. There will be lots going on soon, but today is a day of.... well, we COULD be doing alot of preparation, but it is either getting a late start or we'll be preparing tomorrow or maybe Wednesday!

My plans of getting up early and cleaning the house failed to materialize when I slept right through the usual 5:30 a.m. kitty alarm. Chino was too tired to wake me up. We were just exhausted from our first 3 days of No Tax Retail Weekend. Whew! It was taxing for me!! When I wasn't working at the mall, I was shopping like a madwoman with Gib and Mariah for school supplies and shoes. I got a headstart with Indy and Taryn with their school supplies. That wasn't tax-free, but I knew I could only do so much in the tax-free weekend, we had to get Taryn's done before her surgery, and it was best done on a two-by-two basis.

By 8:00 a.m. my sonar alarm went off, which is usually my "hey you've been on fb long enough" but oddly, doesn't usually get me off of it. I turned it off, looked at Chino, who was just as adorable as could be sleeping next to my pillow with his super fluffy giant head using one corner of it...and we looked each other and in perfect accord, collapsed our heads right back down for another 20 minutes of snooze time. Diego ruined a great sleep in morning when his appetite couldn't take anymore delays.

Despite the slow start, this is a big week. Taryn is recovering from her wisdom teeth surgery. She is feeling much better today. I hope the girls will start packing for their college destinations at the end of the week. WOW! Is anyone having a hard time taking that in?! I know I am. It was so weird last year not having Indy around. But this year not having both Taryn and Indy here will be like summer was, only so much more permanent, and that was sooo odd. A big change for us. Last night I was listening to Gib, Indy and Taryn goofing around in the living room while I was falling asleep. I think Mariah was already asleep upstairs, or perhaps there was a Justin Bieber concert on the upstairs TV or something!! Haha, she will DIE when she reads that!!! Anyways, I'm pretty sure she was asleep because she would have come down for "The Rescue!"

So, Mike and I are enjoying the sounds of the kids teasing and laughing. Mike commented that it would be really quiet in the evenings soon. I wondered about that since Gib and Mariah make a bunch of noise all on their own! But I knew what he meant and I got kinda sad. Then the kids came running to our door saying there was a cat in distress yowling. I had heard the meowing earlier and thought Pixie had been let in, but nooooo. Now that another alarm had gone up, I wished I had gone with my first inner nudge of asking if Mike had been in the mancave earlier since the meows I heard seemed to be loud yet far away. So I asked him this time and sure enough, he had. So the kids raced down to rescue poor Pixie from the mancave. She had practically crawled up the vent trying to get their attention while they were watching TV!

We let her run wild for a couple minutes then tried to entice her inside with calls of "here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty! Pixie!! kitty meat!" (we feed them 1 can of Fancy Feast split 3 ways for each cat - our vet calls it Kitty Crack). Gib goes out back and he can't do the cat call of kitty, kitty, kitty for some reason. So he goes, "ummm, hello?! Pixie? kitty meat! you know you want it!!" Indy was laughing at him and all the dust on Pixie's whiskers. She tattles on Gib's wimpy kitty call. We all laughed at him. Gib got even by trapping me in the pantry when I was throwing away the Kitty Crack can. The door was only open about an inch and I had that feeling, then I hear the pitter patter of giant feet, snickers from Taryn and Gib, and then the SNICK of the door shutting and the ominous feel of the pantry door with a body in front of it. Sure enough, when I tried to push it open, it would not budge. Then there was alot of laughter! I threatened with the best I could come up with on the spur... a horrible first day of school lunch from the pantry for Gib. Trust me, I could do damage. They let me out and then there was some teasing on poor Taryn again about her cheeks being unevenly swollen and she spit out her Gatorade. I decided to just walk away. After all, I was planning to mop in the morning.

So, we should be:

• Out of PJ's
• Cleaning the house
• Packing for college
• Cleaning bedrooms
• Organizing closets and doing laundry for school
• Online training for preschool

Tomorrow is volunteering for middle school, dentist appointments for Gib, Mariah and Chrissie. And a bunch of other stuff. Wednesday I work evening shift. Thursday Indy goes back to Mercer and I have to work a day shift (bad planning! I can't go up with her!!), and Gib and Mariah go back to school. Friday or Saturday at 3 am, we take Taryn to Missouri. Saturday at 9 am she moves in. Yep, there is lots we need to do!!!

It's been a good summer though. I have great kids and I'm so proud of them and I love 'em!!

Pamlico Sea Base

Here is the Admiral's Log of the kayak trip Gib took this summer with the scout troop. Just click on the days below. Pay special attention to July 21st! There is a significant "Gibligan" notation!

July 16-17 - En Route
July 18 - On to Seabase
July 19 - First Day at Sea
July 20 - The Armada Rows to Fish Camp
July 21 - The aroma of burgers and attack of the skeeters
July 22 - Up the Bay and Over to Ocracoke
July 23 - Back to Base Camp
July 24 - Carowinds and Home

VW Bug

On July 20, Indy purchased her first car. It was a solid four days of looking and test driving until we found the one. The only bummer for Indy with this purchase is that she could not test drive it or drive it home after the purchase. It is a 1999 VW Beetle with manual transmission, and Indy had zero experience with this. So, for the next couple of weeks, it was back to driving school for Indy. She and I spent some good time driving parking lots and slow residential areas and then progressed into city driving and finally highway entries and exits. Chrissie also spent some time with her sharing pointers. I must say, she learned much quicker than I had expected. As of Wednesday, Aug 3rd, lessons are complete and she is driving it everywhere.

For those that want a visual - here ya go!







P.S. If you want to see Indy's photos with comments of her trip to Kenya, Africa, check out her facebook profile. There are three albums there!

What's New?

Mariah: Has been a BORED only child for much of the month. She has been mostly glued to the computer due to lack of excitement elsewhere. Bless her heart. She finished her volleyball camp and last week she did the Red Cross babysitter training and First Aid/CPR Certification. She is now golden for babysitting! This photo was taken before we headed home on the last day of the Red Cross camp. When I arrived to pick her up, all the girls were getting wrapped up. It was fun to watch. Apparently, they all wanted to go home that way! Mariah wanted to fool her dad when she got home, so we devised a great "believeable" story about how she came to become injured while doing CPR training. We laughed all the way home practicing it. It went something along the lines of when her name was called to get her CPR card, she tripped over the CPR dummy and she fell, hurting her arm. The instructor felt like it was a great chance for the entire class to practice splinting since they had just learned it the day before! So she used Mariah as an example and it was so embarrassing! (Pouty face accomplished with much practice and pulled off with an academy award performance!) The punch line was that amazingly enough, ALL the girls tripped over the CPR dummy and they had to be splinted up too.

Taryn: Is still at her college summer program. Here she is the day she arrived. Facebook is about the only way to know what's going on, or texting if you happen to be on her GOOD SIDE. But if you call her because she hasn't called you, and you would like to know how she is, any little tidbit about her life she cares to share, etc., she will tell you to ask Gib because she just got done texting him all day. Uh-huh. I called and woke her up 11:30 p.m. because it had been too long since I had any contact with my Little T and I didn't know about the texting l-o-v-e between sibs and none for me! Well, she is doing well, is happy, having fun and getting good grades, ask Gib if you want to know more, thank you very much. Guess I will know more in a couple weeks when she comes home. That is, if I get a chance to ask before her WISDOM TEETH COME OUT! We have a couple of days to catch up on all that happened during Hit the Ground Running. Indie will be picking her up at MS & T since the rest of us will be at Waterworld. We are bummed the girls won't be with us for the annual family/Scouting lake trip, but what can you do? I wish I had some photos.... TARYN!!! I hope you have taken some!!

Gib: See above. Taryn probably knows more than I do. He just got home all super tanned from his kayak trip, and will be leaving again on Wednesday for Waterworld with Mike. When he isn't texting Taryn he runs into the room shooting you with his new iTouch game app that has some kind of machine gun on it. He thinks it is especially funny to aim it at Chino or me. We are ignoring it with regal looks of displeasure. (it is funny though and sometimes I laugh which only makes it worse). Indie took him to the Ortho today and he got one of his permanent retainers put on and we'll be going back after Waterworld for the other one. He recently got his hair done as a "model" by my friend's daughter who was hired on at a very posh salon right out of cosmetology school. Basically, that means it was free (but I tipped her the price of what I usually pay her for a cut)while she is learning her craft at the hands of the salon owner. About $200 bucks worth of services - I'm telling you this place is POSH! He hates the photo, but you can see his cool new Transitions glasses which do the shades thing for outdoors and are regular glasses indoors.

So, when I want to know what REALLY happens on exciting adventures like EFY or his kayaking trip, I just wait for other people to put up fb photos, or blog about it. Looks like it won't be long now and the Scouts will tell me what happened on their trip! Here's the teaser I got just today:

Scouts and adults returned from the Pamlico Seabase high adventure sea kayaking trip Sunday afternoon. Captains of the armada of kayaks with names such as SS Minnow, Titanic, Cornelia Marie (which I think is Spanish for "Corny Mario"), Flying Dutchman, Time Bandit, Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria rowed approximately 40 miles in 4 days up the Pamlico Sound from Harker's Island to Cedar Island near the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

I wonder which kayak was Gib's? Let's guess shall we?! I'm going for.... Titanic. Although I'm kinda tempted to go with Pinta knowing Gib's fondness for play on words and Pinta is close to Pinto, and thus Pinto Beans. Always good for a laugh. Hmmmm, I might rethink my vote.

Indie: Remember my Punch Buggy blog?
Well, let's just say I'm totally PSYCHIC!! She is now learning to drive a stick and we are punching each other alot when we pull into our driveway. And that's all I can say about that right now. Inquiring minds will have to wait for Indie to tell them more.

Indie has also been petsitting for the past 3 weeks or so. In that time she has pretty much earned what she would have working part time for the summer, so we are thinking this is probably the best way to go next summer as well. Trying to line something up for what remains of her time after a mission trip is difficult and she will be going on another one next year. I think word of mouth will spread about the wonderful college student who kept dogs, cats, birds, and even a grandma fed and happy; plus she kept plants & flowers alive throughout a massive heat wave. Her last job had a pool where apparently the entire neighborhood had a pass to come hang out if they felt like it. Indy met several people who liked her, and a petsitter is alot less expensive than a kennel and their pets will be alot happier.


Me & Mike: Have been taking the kids through our revolving door. But I have to say, Indy has been doing almost as much of this as we have with Gib. For some reason pretty much if Gib needs to be taken somewhere, or picked up it's about 50/50 that Indy will be his ride.

We also have been fixing the place up. Our current project is painting the damaged cinderblock walls in the garage with Dry-Loc paint to prevent any water from seeping through again. I think it will take 2 if not 3 coats. Ugh. All by hand too. Double Ugh. The basement company has been here and gone and the house is all "piered up" and we won't be sliding down the hill anytime soon now. Now we are awaiting plans for Phase 2 of the fix to redirect the water from the topside. Which means basically ripping out the old deck and making sure the grade around the house directs water away and not toward the foundation. It looks like there will be a beautiful new arbor, a window to the backyard for mom, and a new stone coated concrete patio instead of a wood deck. The preliminary plans look great and nicely tie in the limestone walls and landscaping work we have now.

I have been finishing painting Gib's room. I don't have a picture of that yet. I should have taken one before he came home and messed it up but I didn't! It's very awesome though! Mariah and Grammy helped me paint it. Mike hung up the new curtains and helped me put stuff back together, and Ricky put in a new bathroom light fixture - twice! The first one didn't work. Bummer. I decided to buy another matching shower curtain and turn it into a window treatment for the bathroom; I shop, Grammy sews. How perfect!

So that was the month of July. Now we are off to Waterworld. The guys have to get ready to go. Mike has already gone shopping with his Kitchen Co-Chef and Mariah and they have food for I guess about 75 people for 3 days, plus Sunday b-fast and light lunch. This year Mariah and I will be "camping" at the Lodge just us two girls. We've always stayed in a cabin, so it will be weird but I think we will manage to have great fun just the two of us! We are used to having 4 or 5 teenagers. There will be so much more bathroom time in the morning that's all I can say!!

Time for me to go to bed. I have to make a bazillion sales calls for CWC tomorrow. Sadly, it turns out I'm good at it and now I guess it'll be my job forever. I get to go into work 3 hrs earlier than scheduled just for this purpose too. Oh well, "I get paid in clothes, I get paid in clothes..." and psst....35% off the entire store this Saturday at your nearest Coldwater Creek!