Not a Turd in Sight

The following picture is gross. I know this, and I know that some of you will think that my family must be really gross, but I promise that we do not keep turds or dead animals anywhere inside this house. Ok, we do keep turds in certain places, but that's only because I can't get all the short people in this house to flush the toilet. But no dead animals. And it's not like we just started keeping the turds. They've been around for a good 3-4 years.

So what, if not turds or dead animals, is attracting these disgusting creatures? Last week, we killed 41 of them in about an hour's time. The kids and I were counting. I thought for sure we had a problem in our house, so I asked Aaron to buy these traps. Look at our window about 12 hours after installing the traps.

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You should have seen them after 2 days. Unbelievable. So what in the world is going on? Do we have a hole somewhere?

Here's the real question: Why, after installing new traps, have we attracted zero new flies? Is it possible that they saw all their friends dying and decided not to come into our house? Why has this invasion suddenly stopped?

And why, oh why, did God create flies in the first place????????

Bored?

Aaron just sent me this link...hilarious, satirical look at today's news and current events.
http://www.theonion.com/content/index

July 4th Weekend

I don't know about you, but I believe that the 4th of July should be spent near water. A pool, the lake, heck a sprinkler system will work in a pinch. Whatever the source, I'd say water is necessary. Friends and family aren't a must, but they sure do make it more fun.

So, let me just say that we had neither. This is not to say we didn't have any fun, but we had to work harder at having fun than we usually do.

After lying around all morning, we decided to check out the Frisco Freedom Fest. It was advertised as "Free admission" and "Lots of free Kids' Zone activities" so we thought that sounded like a great way to spend time before the fireworks started (scheduled for 10 pm).

Here we are, just arriving at Frisco Square, around 5 p.m:

I like these pictures because, not only are we all festive in our coordinating red, white and blue, but we are still full of hope and anticipation of the 5 hours of fun we are about to have. (Did we really think the kids would last for 5 hours? Sure, with FREE activities, live music and "tons of Frisco restaurant booths" to choose from.)

Our first activity was the Euro Bungee. Avery was the only one brave enough...thank goodness, because it WAS NOT FREE. It cost 6 tickets. Aaron went to buy tickets while we stood in line. He came back and informed me that he just spent $30 on 30 tickets.

Okey dokie...well, this is a big activity. It has to cost more than the other things. Plus, Avery loved it.

See? She's loving it. Totally worth six dollars.

Now, on to the next activity...tons of bounce houses. Since bounce houses are everywhere these days, they have to be cheap.

THREE TICKETS? PER CHILD? That's three freaking dollars a child to jump on a dadgum bounce house! It's not looking like our $30 of tickets are going to last 5 hours....seriously? THREE DOLLARS TO JUMP ON A BOUNCE HOUSE? There is a restaurant by our house that has two bounce houses out back...sure, the food sucks, but at least the bounce houses are free!

We decided to take a break with a snow cone. $3 each? Yeah, but you get to make your own! Surely that's worth $3, right? Kids LOVE to squirt that syrup stuff. Suicide snow cones on the 4th of July. Gotta love that. Oh wait. I have picky kids. None of them wanted the vomit-colored snow cones they had created. There's another $9 down the drain. But look how cute they are with their sweaty, red faces.

So, where is this Kids' Zone with "tons of free activities?" It's way, way in the back...behind all the three and four ticket items, of course. It's the crappy bean bag toss where the bean bag weighs more than the actual board, so it tips over when you throw it. It's that fishing game, where the kid throws the fishing line over a screen and someone behind puts a toy on it. We have like, three paper gliders that fell apart 10 minutes after we got them. There was also a game where a kiddie pool was full of ducks with numbers on the bottom. I'm sure there was supposed to be some sort of system, but the dude running this "game" just handed a prize every time a kid picked up a duck, regardless of the number. More gliders.

We walked all the way to the back, playing one crappy game after another, until we came to the paramedic/fire station portion. The kids liked that...here they are with one of Frisco's old-timey fire truck.

So, to summarize: We spent $9 on snow cones that went in the trash; $30 on bounce houses and bungee jumping; $13 for three sandwiches; and $6 on water. All this in 2 hours. We were too broke to wait the last 3 hours before fireworks, so we came home and got in the kiddie pool in the backyard. We then had popcorn and watched a movie until 9:45, when we drove up to the CVS parking lot to sit and watch fireworks. I wouldn't say I would do it all over again, but hey, it's a memory. That's what holidays are all about, right?

P.S. If you ask my kids what their favorite part of the day was, I bet they would all say the fireworks. Not because they loved them so much, but because, at one point in the parking lot, one guy had his headlights on and another guy went absolutely berserk, yelling "HEY, IDIOT! Turn off your lights, IDIOT!" over and over again. We all got in the car and laughed all the way home, mocking the yeller. The next day, that's all they wanted to talk about...the yelling guy. Hey, at least that was free.

Uncle Bo

My brother and his wife stopped to stay with us on their way to Oklahoma Sunday. We hadn't seen them since Christmas, so we were so excited for them to get here-and equally sad when they left.


Avery LOVES Uncle Bo and Aunt April. Here she is with Bo on the couch. She told April later that she wasn't really sleepy, she just didn't want Bo to have to snuggle by himself.




Bo and April are both coaches, so they brought Avery plenty of gear. She got a 'real' athlete's backpack, a Javelina (Bo's team) sweatshirt, and each of the kids got a football camp t-shirt.


They loved the shirts. They slept in them Sunday night and refused to take them off all day Monday. I finally convinced them to let me wash them Monday night. I actually tricked them while they were in the tub, or I'm not so sure I could have gotten them to the washer. I don't know if it's the shirt or where the shirt came from, actually! Either way, we all miss them all the time and are considering petitioning for a job for Bo somewhere closer to us!

More Oklahoma Pictures

Turns out I didn't take as many pictures as I should have...we had way more fun than the pics show!

The kids found a turtle they named Chunk. Here's a picture of Avery and Chunk:

Reese and Macy B are two peas in a pod. They both love dressing up, playing house and just in general being Miss Prisses:

We also celebrated JD's 5th birthday while we were there. His mom and dad got him a trampoline. I think Aaron and Josh hated putting it together, but it was a BIG hit with all the kids.

Josh and Emily's backyard is awesome. My kids aren't used to so much room to roam and play. Here are Rhett and Reese on the "waterslide."

Here are all the cousins at JD's birthday party. It seems like there are more every year...maybe that's because there are!

We loved the trip and were so sad to leave, Avery and I actually cried a little bit on the way home. Now that Avery is in school, we don't get to go up as often, so we're going to try for at least one more trip this summer. I'm so glad my kids have P-town to visit...there's nothing like small town freedom in the summertime!

Pictures from our Mini-Vacay

On the way to Pawhuska to get Avery, we stopped in Oklahoma City so Aaron could do some business there. The kids always like staying in a hotel, so we made it a little mini-vacation. With kids, you can turn anything into a big deal, don't you think?

Here are a few pics.

Buffalo outside our hotel. I thought this was kind of cool. I want one for the backyard.

I don't even know what this is called, but it was in between our hotel and the canal at Bricktown. The kids loved it. I even got in on the action, but me looking like a sweaty, soaked rat isn't something you want to see. I will let you see Rhett kicking water on me.

And then back at the hotel....

That's Reese, testing out her new goggles in the bathtub. She looks awesome in them, doesn't she? (About how I look in goggles, I think.)

At least she was able to get hers on. Rhett wouldn't let me help him, so this is how he "swam." Seriously.

More pics from Oklahoma (including Avery!) tomorrow...or whenever I get around to it!

Avery in Oklahoma

Avery has been in Oklahoma since Saturday and she hasn't called me once. I've called her, but she is too busy to talk. Luckily, my sister keeps me updated via text and she has sent a few pictures. Sunday, Aunt La La (my sister) took them to Woolaroc, a cool little museum-type place we used to always go on field trips when I was in elementary school. It has lots of Cowboys and Indians stuff, which I knew would impress Avery. Turns out, they've added a lot to Woolaroc since I was there...(can't believe it's changed in the last THIRTY years!)

There is a petting zoo there. I honestly have no idea what this animal is.

Avery forgot her cowboy boots, so Aunt La La took her to the local store to buy the ugliest boots in Osage County, but Avery loves them. She is wearing Cash's jeans and shirt, which is about 4 sizes too big, but she is happy. JD is wearing a floppy old hat that my Nana has for dress up and he seems pretty happy too. Cash is the only one who looks unhappy, but I think that might be his "I'm a cowboy, don't mess with me" look. It must be...here's one of all three of them looking that way.

They are so stinkin' cute, aren't they? Avery will have these memories forever...I'm so glad I let her go!

Although, I wasn't told there would be live ammunition:

Apparently, this "mountain man" lives there, in a tee pee. Here are the kids, inside the tee pee:

I still haven't figured out if this is for real or the dude works for Woolaroc...surely he doesn't willingly live in a tee pee with no running water or electricity? Stranger things have happened I guess.

Here they are in the campsite. It appears to be the kitchen. I'm sure cooking in a tee pee can be kind of tedious.

I wouldn't know anything about that because, apparently, I have completely lost touch with my Osage Indian heritage; I thought Avery was holding an axe in the next picture:

For those of you who have either lost touch with (or never actually had) your Native American side, this is a tomahawk. You know, the tool used to scalp the white man. There isn't a child alive in Osage County that doesn't have a rubber tomahawk. Mine had a red spearhead. It's a lovely toy to give a newborn baby.

I will leave you with a shot of the kids searching the landscape for Indians...did I mention that each of this children ARE actually Indians, even if only an itty bitty bit?

Who thinks that Aunt La La is one brave soul for taking all of these yay-hoos out by herself? I'd say she's a pretty fabulous aunt, wouldn't you?