County Fair

So, I finally edited some of the photos I took this month. It might take me a couple of days to post them though, I am pretty worn out right now and I am probably going to turn in soon.

Our first big adventure this month, besides a friend's son's birthday party where I forgot to take any photos, was the County Fair. Robert was in Colorado, and I was trying to do stuff with the kids so we could keep all of our minds off the fact that Daddy was away.

Liam was just a couple inches too short to ride some of the kiddie rides, I am sure by next year he will be able to ride them all. This was his first trip to the fair, so he still got a big kick out of it. Here is a photo of his very first ride.

Elizabeth's favorite ride was the canoe ride. She loved sticking her hands in the freezing cold water. It was so windy and cold that day, and the kids were not dressed for the weather, by the time the shadows started creeping in for the day I was ready to go home.

Of course before we went home, we had to get a funnel cake and cotton candy. The ultimate in fair food. Liam fell asleep on the way home, with cotton candy sticky hands and face. What a fun day, the only thing missing was Daddy.

This month is flying by...

I can't believe I haven't posted for almost 2 weeks. I have taken quite a few pictures, so the process of going thought them and editing the best ones to fit on the blog is rather daunting. But, that is just an excuse - I have a bunch of other one's too, like it is raging hot here and we are trying our darnedest not to use the AC. The computer room is the hottest room in the house owing to the fact that it is not a real room, it is some sort of narrow space with a door on it and we have never quite figured out what it is supposed to be. Another excuse would be that Robert was out of town last week for work (he had to go to Boulder for some classes) and I had to keep the kids running all around so that none of us would have such a hard time dealing with Daddy not being home.

Oh, and let me tell you about this Sunday, when Robert and I decided that installing some screen doors on our house would be a good idea. First, I told Robert that I had no problem driving down to the home improvement warehouse to pick up a 4 X 6.5 sliding screen door and a 50lb. security screen door with all the various other items one would use for this type of installation. I was thinking that an hour or two on my own away from the kids that I had been with 24/7 for the last 6 and a half days would be a welcome change. That was until I was in the sweltering hot parking lot in front of said home improvement warehouse for almost an hour trying to get all the blasted items to fit either in or on top of my tiny little munchkin sized economy SUV. The screen door on top of the car would act like an enormous deranged kite if I went over 25 miles per hour. My quick jaunt to the store ended up taking me an exhausting 4.5 hours. And, by the time I got home the screen door was warped and the support crosspieces were broken. I was literally crying on the way home at the futility of the whole trip.

Fortunately Robert was able to reshape the screen door and make it usable. Then we proceeded to spend the next 4 hours hating each other while we tried to install the doors. I thought I was going to have to kill him! Have you ever seen the Money Pit? It was like that, only we were just installing a screen door. If I had to remodel the house with him, we would probably be heading for divorce in about three days. Or you would just have to come looking for pieces of one of us buried out in the desert, because one of us would have snapped. If we do actually ever do any remodeling on this house it had better be because we won the lottery and we can pay someone to do it for us while we are on vacation in Ireland. That is the only scenario I see working out.

Now I guess I am going to try and go to sleep in the miserable heat of my bedroom.

My Cuties

enough said.

P.S. I Love You

Well, I just cried my way through this movie. I would give it two thumbs up if you are in the mood for a really sappy, feel-good chick flick. I wouldn't recommend making your husband sit through it, but I enjoyed watching it all by myself so nobody could make fun of the tears streaming down my face through three-quarters of the movie.

Also, I am impressed by Gerard Butler, look him up here. It is hard to believe he is the same guy that played King Leonidas in The 300.

Teach a kid to fish....

I have been thinking lately that the kids are getting old enough to go fishing. To be fair, they both had an opportunity to fish in the pond behind my Mom's house when we were living with her a couple of years ago. However, Liam was so little, it really didn't hold his attention and Elizabeth was far more interested in squeezing the little bait minnows in her hands until they were quite pulpy (can anyone say Lenny?).

So, today at Target, I bought the kids their own cheapo fishing poles thinking maybe we would go down to one of our little lakes sometime and throw in a line, or that having the poles might give the kids something to do if we were out camping.

The kids had a different idea... the brand new fishing poles were all they could talk about, and I knew I was not going to hear the end of it if we didn't at least go try them out today. I was able to talk a reluctant, hard-working husband into a little early evening trip to the "fishing hole". So, I packed us a lite dinner and we stopped at the market for some bait (night crawlers - yuk! and some fluorescent glittering marshmallows that are apparently supposed to taste like shrimp, okay - as long as they don't end up in MY hot chocolate).

We set up at one of the little lake "fingers" where they have installed little shelters with picnic tables, actually a very nice set up. Robert managed to get the worm on Elizabeth's hook along with a bobber and some weights. He cast it in for her and gave her instructions to sit and watch the bobber. I was still setting up the chairs and getting drinks so I didn't take any photos, and I didn't have anything but my camera phone with me anyway because of course I forgot the regular camera at home.

Robert hadn't even had time to pick up Liam's pole to start setting it up for him, when Elizabeth yells out. We look over and her bobber is going crazy. Robert tells her to yank on it and start pulling it in. Can you believe what my 5 year old daughter pulls out of the lake after 3 minutes...

It had to be about 5 pounds of beautiful rainbow trout. The line was cutting into my fingers as I was trying to get her to hold it up so I could take a picture. Of course, she got all girly and scared on me and wouldn't get near it.

We had every intention of playing catch and release, after all I do not eat fish, and I would rather not cook it either. But the poor girl had swallowed the hook good and was losing eggs all over the place. Robert said we had to take it, because it wasn't going to live if we put it back in the water.

So, I had to take all of our dinner stuff out of the cooler so we could put this fish in it. Blech! And wouldn't you know it, we didn't reel in another fish for the rest of the hour we spent there.

The kids had a great time though, they both cried when we had to leave, and as they were getting in bed tonight they kept asking when we get to go fishing again. Robert even admitted that he had fun, even though it was more work then he bargained for, especially after he had to come home and gut the fish so he could freeze it and take it to work tomorrow to give it to someone who will eat it.

Silly Boy

I don't even remember why he was crying. I was trying to get him to cheer up by taking his picture. He is usually such a ham, that just seeing the camera (or the camera phone, in this case) will make him smile. I told him to smile, and he looked at me and then did this. I took the picture anyway because his overreaction just made me crack up.

How about a kiss?

Too Funny! This is a lollipop, he has the sucker part in his mouth.