Todd got notified that his application for the Reserves has been processed and he is now "in". The computer hasn't finished putting all the tabs into all the slots yet so he won't get his new ID card until Wednesday or Thursday but that's just the shouting. It looks like we'll be able to go onto military insurance which is so freakin' awesome I can't even tell you! I'll give it a shot. Can you imagine paying $180 per month and not having any other medical costs at all? I'm serious. NONE. No prescriptions, no copays, no deductibles. NOTHING! Awesome! I'm so excited. We should be covered by mil insurance by the start of next week. Todd has his first "drill weekend" this weekend (because the processing went faster than we thought) and we're about 90% sure he'll be in Texas for all of March. It's going very fast. I couldn't be happier. Things, all things, having been going so slow for about 2 years now and it's good to have something go fast. (Well, except my kids' growth, that is really super fast.) I'm relieved. Yay Todd!
We had a busy week last week. We went to Nevada to spend Thanksgiving with Todd's family in Alamo. It is about an 8 hour drive for us. That's not too bad because we like road trips. Unless you're Logan, than you hate road trips. He is anti-car seat today. He hates car seats. Don't give him a gun because he will shoot the car seat. It wasn't just the end of the week that was crazy though, the first part was as well.
On Monday last week, we had the Roy City Christmas Lighting concert that I told you about. Then Tuesday night was Bunco night for me. That made things hectic because we had to get everything ready to go before Tuesday night because I was gone for 4 hours at Bunco (which I love). Bunco is a lot of fun in itself, but I actually like the "hanging-out-with-the-girls" part of Bunco more. I love those girls. I always have a great time. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry and sometimes I just have great conversations with a bunch of really amazing women. Either way, it is something I am so grateful for and I will continue to attend as long as they will have me! I hope they will always have me.
So anyway, after Tuesday's getting ready and my going to Bunco (there is more, but it is for the "Chicken Letters" part of this post), Todd and I passed out cold. We got up ready and raring to go on Wednesday morning, all aboard the Mayflower. We drove to Alamo via I-15 but had to stop in the Salt Lake area to run some metals around for Phoenix Alloys. It is the kind of stuff that takes time and is a pain in the neck but is so valuable and important to the company. So, while we wished we could have just hit the road straight up, we were glad to have metal to run around because it means Todd is working.
When we arrived in Alamo, we were immediately set up to do family pictures. That's our 2nd round in less than 4 days. I'm telling you, some of these pics we've had done have GOT to turn out...there have been so many taken! I'm hoping to have them soon. I'm anxious to see
them!
After taking pics with tired, anxious, and excited kids, we retired to dinner and then staggered off to bed. We weren't the only ones either. Todd's sister Tawna and her husband Matt (shouts out to you seals!) have four kids and were just as whipped! Todd's brother Rick and his wife Kristi and his sister Taura and her husband Scott were sports and helped out. It was a lot of mocus (that is commotion and ruckus all rolled into one word) but we got 'er done! On Thursday we woke up and had a great breakfast thanks to Todd's dad Rick and settled in for "the big cook". We played cards, smelled the turkey and watched/listened to the kids tear up Nana's house. It was a combination of fun and crazy. Isn't that what family time and the holidays are about? Once the food was done we fed the kids and fed ourselves and then fed and fed some more. It was a lot of feeding I tell you. I ate too much. Todd filled up his "fat tummy" pants. Logan was even full and I didn't feed him anymore than I normally do. I think it was in the air. We took some very cute pictures of Logan and Tawna's baby Ethan who is 10 weeks younger. Here they are, working in their baby cubicles.
Logan is in the blue jammies and Ethan is in the green. Thursday night ended around 10:00 pm for the kids via a movie and around 1:00 am for the adults via cards and food comas. It was a good Thanksgiving, lots to be grateful for.
On Friday morning we woke up to get ready for a day in Las Vegas. Alamo is about 90 miles north of Las Vegas and that means that Vegas is the nearest city. It's really the nearest settlement of any size. There are a few very small towns about 40 or 50 miles north east but they don't have anymore in the way of amenities than does Alamo so you know Vegas is gonna play a critical role. Tawna and I woke up early to get our kids showered and dressed so that they would be out of the way of the other adults. But something went haywire, and there was a mad scramble for showers and hot water and the like. I don't know why. Tawna and I thought we had a good plan but I guess all the kids getting up and getting ready spawned some kind of mad dash. The whole thing was really silly because we didn't even need to leave for Vegas until about 10:30 am.
So here we are, fighting to stay alive in the bathroom as people give you "the look" because you are in there and everyone is working hard to get the showering done before the water goes to ice. Seriously. It was like calf roping and showering and hygeine all rolled into one event. I've never seen anything like it since I moved out of my parents' house. Even then it wasn't that crazy.
After we were all done "getting ready" there was all this sitting around and wondering what the hurry was. Todd will want me to emphasize that he wasn't hurrying. He was the only one in his right mind. I think Matt was in his right mind too. To be fair. So anyway, we're all sitting around and thinking it's gonna be a long time before we leave. What do we decide? We decide to take some pics of the kids. This is because they are all dressed up in the outfits that their "Nana" got for them when she went on an Alaskan cruise earlier this year. Here are some of what we got...
Aren't they all adorable? I think they were definitely done with pictures by the time we got done though. Check Abby out in that middle pic. All you can see are her legs. I don't blame them. I was done as well. While this was all going on, we (the adults) were hungry. Our Thanksgiving dinner-stretched stomachs were growling for MORE and most of us were pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to wait until Vegas. Todd noted that all the cereal had been decimated by the kids and that we needed a Plan B. I just suggested that we eat the left over rolls with peanut butter on them. That idea went over like wild fire in southern California so people descended onto the kitchen and began the mad spreading of peanut butter upon roll after roll. After a few minutes of chewing and groaning noises, Tawna mentioned that the peanut butter tasted a bit "different". I said that I thought that it tasted like maybe the peanuts had been seriously roasted before being made into "butter". There was some general shrugging and then more chewing and groaning until the rolls were gone. Matt and Taura watched from a distance, not being tempted or hungry for our improvised breakfast.
After we were done eating, I headed to the kitchen to throw my styrofoam away and walked by the peanut butter. I picked it up wondering what the label was, thinking that maybe the taste could be attributed to a "no name brand" type label or something. Upon seeing that it was, in fact, "Western Family" peanut butter I decided that maybe that was why it tasted so different. However, I turned the jar over to look at the expiration date just the same. It turns out that our particular jar of peanut butter had expired in January of 2007. Nearly two years ago. Rick and Lorna (Todd's parents) don't eat peanut butter. It doesn't agree with them. So, they hadn't had a reason to check the date. It didn't affect them. It did, however, affect 4 out of 6 adults in the home that day. Todd, Tawna, Scott, and myself were all burping, vurping (those are the little burps that make you throw up in your mouth a little bit), and tasting expired peanut butter for the rest of the day. Suddenly, a Vegas buffet didn't sound anywhere nearly as good as a Sprite did. Despite the "after-tasting" that went on all day, as well as the many trips to the bathroom, we survived. Turns out that expired peanut butter isn't anywhere nearly as dangerous as other expired foodstuffs. I wouldn't recommend it though, it whacks out your digestive tract for a few days. Layla is thankful for fresh peanut butter.
After we got to Vegas, we went to the Las Vegas Museum of Natural History. We all had a great time. They had lots of neat stuffed specimens, some live sea life, hatching bamboo sharks, and dinosaurs! It was awesome! The kids were screaming, yelling, and running all around stuffing their little brains with knowledge. I don't think I've ever been so fortified in Las Vegas.
If you want to see more pics, and I took a lot of cute ones, check my Facebook out. After the museum, we caught a movie and braved TGI Fridays on Friday (it wasn't as busy as you would think) and basically had a nice day out. We got back to Alamo late Friday night and put the kids to bed and commenced playing cards. We were totally slap happy and it turns out that Tawna snorts when she laughs really hard. Who am I to throw stones though? I do the same thing. The police came to tell us to shut the car door (how's that for tired) because there were three cats inside our car and we finally staggered off to bed at about 2:00 am.
Saturday was our originally planned trek home. We thought about staying, decided to leave, and then waited so long to go that we ended up staying anyway because traveling through southern Nevada and southern Utah at night is inherently dangerous. Think, "BIG GAME on the road." when I say this. Saturday afternoon was a lot of fun with just our little family and Todd's parents. Rick took us to the C-130 quick strip landing site there in Alamo where we shot up tin cans, water bottles, and shot gun shells with a 22 rifle and revolver. The boys (and I) were LOVING it.
I have to say, it's been a while since I've shot a gun and I can still hit something. One out of ten times at least. The boys did great and learned a lot about gun safety. That's important, considering that where we live is very rural and there are lots of guns around. Not my house, but others...
After we were done there, we went further up the dirt road to Box Canyon where Todd spent his childhood bouldering around on huge slabs of sedimentary mudstone. What an awesome place it is. We decided to get out of the car (leaving Logan with Nana, of course) and to go bouldering up the canyon to a rock that has been hollowed out by the wind and rain of time.
Believe it or not, this rock is about 200 feet above the desert floor and is pretty intense. To give you an idea of the height, the car we came in is viewable behind Todd on his left. It was a nice opportunity for Todd to share some of his childhood with Jeffrey and Jackson as well as to give them some cool memories of their own!
Saturday night was for card playing, college football watching, and rest. We had a nice time and went to bed at a decent time (for a change). We got up early Sunday, showered, packed, and headed home. It was a lovely day for the drive and Logan was good and tired when we left. We went through all the areas of southern Nevada that remind Todd of his youth, stopping to document our transition from Nevada to Utah.
We stopped in Cedar City (where Todd and I met and spent our first year of college and the first 4 months of our marriage) to show the boys where their dad played college football and where he broke his back.
We ate lunch and continued north through horrendous traffic. I can't believe how bad it was! By the time we got to Payson, we were actually stopping and starting on I-15. That is crazy to me! We got home at about 7:00 pm last night to our home and animals, all lovingly cared for by our wonderful babysitter/pet sitter Courtney! What will we do when she graduates from high school this year? I guess hire her brother Logan. He has a nice name. So we are home and are catching up. It is gonna be a busy week ahead, but no rest for the weary.
A short installment into "The Chicken Letters" this week. I am sure I told you about General Tso's unfortunate gunshot wound. She is healing nicely and is back to her old self. It turns out that the wound wasn't as bad as it could have been and she will persevere, purple heart and all. I wish I could say that the story ended there but it doesn't. When I went to Bunco on Tuesday night, I was telling my neighbors about the modifications that Todd was putting on the coop so that the chickens weren't ranging anymore (they work great by the way). I told them that after General Tso was shot, that was the end of it and we were gonna put our chickens in their place. My chicken affectionate neighbor (aforementioned when referencing mouse bait) put her hands over her face and moaned, "Brad confessed to me last night. He shot your chicken." She felt bad. I told her the General was going to be okay but she said that Brad felt "like a fool" and wanted to make restitution. It turns out that he had already gone out and purchased two chickens to replace some of our lost flock. I asked her when he was going to bring them over and she explained that it was "his thing". Come Wednesday morning, we saw Brad jump into a friend's truck and drive away so we figured he would either be putting the chickens in our coop or that he would be housing them himself until we got back. Apparently he was so embarrassed that he let his temper get the best of him so that he shot at the General AND that he had run away when Todd yelled at him (he, he) that he didn't really want to face us. I told my friend to tell him not to worry but again, it was "his thing". So, I didn't press the issue.
When we got home last night we found that we have two new members. It looks like they are a couple of older Rhode Island Red hens who are missing a few feathers. I thought that our chickens had removed their feathers during some hazing but it turns out that they came that way. I hope that they are either molting or were living with a nasty rooster and that their feathers will grow in as they find our home to be a healthy and safe environment. The other chickens seem to be accepting them alright and I am sure we can take good care of them. I hope they don't have parasites. If they do, we'll take it on. Either way, we have two new layers. I am happy about that and I'm always happy to put animals who have been in a rough environment into a better one (mine). I think they will eventually thrive here. They seem very scared and are having a rough time feeling comfortable. With patience and lots of care, I am sure they will soon feel at home. We have decided to name one Feathers Kaboom (ironic, considering the feather issue) but haven't quite decided on the other one's name. We will, as I am sure you know, keep you posted. Here they are, rough looking and all...
Feathers Kaboom is the one missing feathers on her head (smaller comb) and the other one's wing feathers are looking weird. I wish they would stop being so scared!
Other than that, Terri, our dog-injured chicken, is back in with the flock and has secured her spot with her old girls. Look at her tail feathers growing back in! She is doing well and I'm sure she'll be all the better for her trails.
Aren't we all? So, the chicken drama this week ends up being "good" drama. That is, provided the "new" chickens aren't missing feathers due to parasites. I'm crossing my fingers that the weather is too cold for parasites.
Well, that's it! A lot, I know. I'm okay with it. If you aren't, don't read, just look at the pics. I am happy to say we are attending my nephew Roman's birthday party, planning to decorate for Christmas, instituting a new work out regimen, and watching Logan continue to grow in his mobility (he pulls up solidly now, no more capital N) this week. I hope to see some of you around this week. Either way, much love to you and we'll post to you next week, watch for updates! Happy December!
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