I've Got All My Sisters With Me

I love the ward I'm in!  I love being able to serve in Relief Society in this ward because we have so many awesome sisters that I just love.  On Saturday we had our 4th Annual 5K.  The them for the 5K was "We Are Family, I've Got All My Sisters With Me", in honor of our 2nd Annual National Visiting Teaching Month.  I had so much fun making 3 Birthday Videos all day on Friday, I decided why not make one for the 5K tomorrow.  So at 11 o'clock that night I made this one.  I'm not kidding, by the time I finished that video (my 4th for the day) I no longer had use of my right hand.  It was stuck in the shape of the mouse and I could not push the button on the mouse.  It was all worth it though and I'm all recovered!  I love the video because it shows the love we have for each other and the amazing amount of fun we have together in this ward!

Never A Dull Moment - El Pollo Loco

My chickens have been driving me crazy lately.  CrAzY i say!  This is a whole new flock of chickens that we got last spring, we gave away all our older ones.  These new ones were so good for so long.  And then it's like they just all of a sudden completely lost it and are wreaking havoc all over the place.  They were so good for so long to stay in the yard like all good chickens do.  Then one day they found the front porch.  Then it was the back patio.  Now they head straight for both places first thing every morning.  I am constantly hosing down my driveway and porch and patio but they still are always covered with poop.  It's disgusting.  I seriously can stand it no longer.  Like I am about to put chicken on the Thanksgiving menu I am so frustrated.  They have their own yard with a fence but they will not stay in it.  I clipped my last chickens wings and I didn't really want to have to do it to this batch, but I think they are leaving me with no choice.  Anyway.  The poop is just one of the problems I am having with these ladies.  Remember that picture above?  That was the day I was home alone and came out of my bedroom to find a chicken in my hall.

Well the other day I looked out front and saw something I had never seen before.  A chicken on top of my luggage carrier.  On top of my van.

We started off with 12 chickens but we have lost a few.  Still, once they started laying eggs, I felt like we were not getting the amount of eggs we should be getting to make feeding and cleaning up the poop worth it. Then one of my girls found this little stash in the wood pile.

OK, I actually felt sorry for whoever laid this whopper that we found.  Those two eggs flanking it are large size eggs.  The one in the middle is giant jumbo sized.  Like I really really felt sorry for the girl that had to push that sucker out!

 Just to give you and idea of how big it was, this is how it fit in the egg carton.

That same chicken that was in my house before.  I really think she thinks she is a human.  Every time someone goes in or out of the house, she is there, waiting for her chance to come in the house.  She actually runs for the door.  And I know I took a picture of her trying to get in the van one time when we were going somewhere, but I can't find it now.  She is always trying to get in the van with us.  And she also runs for the garage door.  We were leaving to go somewhere and we were only going to be gone a few minutes.  So I left the garage door open. As we were pulling out of the driveway, I saw her come around the side of the house.  I hit the button to close the garage door so she couldn't go in and she took off.  She ran for the door and tried to squeeze under it, but she was just a tad too slow.  Also.  There was this one time a few months ago, when I was outside filling up the chickens water, when this same chicken (OK, I really don't know if it was this same chicken- we have  3 that look just like this- or if all the red chickens are exceptionally naughty) anyway I was crouched on the ground giving the chickens liquid refreshment when this chicken jumped up on top of my head.  That really, really...did not go over well with me.  Do you know what it feels like to have a chickens talons digging into your skull?  It's not pleasant.

After we removed the stash of eggs from the woodpile, our daily egg production started to increase.  I still thought we were not getting the proper amount.  That is when Zac and his friend Ethan, who have appointed themselves chicken wardens, found this stash in our old chicken coop, which I thought the chickens had no access to.  I thought wrong.  Since the wardens boarded this up, our egg production has increased even more.

Anyway.  I really don't know what the point of this post is.  Other than to tell you that we have some mighty crazy chickens around here and they are starting to make me mighty crazy as well.

Never A Dull Moment - The Bird Chronicles

There was a bird in my house today.  If you wanna find out all about it you will have to watch the above video.  But I am warning you right now.  It is long.  It is rambling.  And it is extremely nasal passagey.  But I went to the trouble to make the dang thing and I'm not gonna sit here and type it all out so you can avoid whatever unpleasantness you might encounter by watching the video.  If you wanna know how it ended, you will have to watch the below video which I promise is much shorter and shot from a different angle so there is a lot less nasal involved.  

If you, like me, are curious as to how the bird got in the house in the first place, you might find it interesting to know that after Z and E and I searched the room, we all went downstairs.  Then I realized I had left my phone upstairs on the windowsill and when I went up to fetch it, I found the door that leads out to the deck from the hall wide open.  Emily is the one who entered the room via the deck and she insists that she did not leave the door ajar.  So at this point I must assume it is the same ghost that we have living in our house who leaves all of Emily's stuff strewn about and puts her dirty dishes back on the table after she has washed them.

END OF THE DAY UPDATE- I have a new phrase for those days when you just don't get anything accomplished: "It was a bird in the house kinda' day."

PS- The guest room has been thoroughly checked and recheck and re-rechecked.  My dear husband even went up there and stood in the room with me while I held a light under the bed and looked there.  Still no bird. 

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - P8GNO Goes To Walmart

Flashback: March 2011

 Flashforward: October 2012

Whenever our fierce chick gang gets together, we somehow always end up at Walmart.  We don't set out intending to go to Walmart.  But we do always end up there.  Last year when we went we were banned from the store because of our shenanigans, which you can see by clicking here.  They finally took down the posters with our pictures on them, so we decided it was time to go back.

It was my dear friend and neighbor Lori's Birthday a few weeks ago.  We took her out for a lovely dinner at Noodles and Company.  Then when we asked her where she wanted to go next it came as no surprise to any of us when she answered with DI.  It is after all her favorite store.  Once that store closed, we decided to hit up Walmart.  Because we seriously needed some chap stick.  You know, with the weather changing and all.  I talked the ladies into purchasing my personal favorite brand of chap stick, and the only kind that I allow to grace my face.  Aquafina.  Not only is it the best, it is also way super cheap.  You can buy a 4 pack at Walmart for $2.60.  And we all know that you need multiple sticks to stash in various places.  Such as your purse, your makeup bag, your car, your church bag.

While at Walmart, April wanted to see if Amber could fit into the shopping cart.  I was a little nervous because usually whenever people listen to April they end up with a broken fibula. (click here to read all about it)  Thankfully no one was injured this night.

I did take a couple of videos of them as they went through the check out line.  The girl checking them out didn't say a word or even crack a smile.

It was late and we were all tuckered out after our shopping adventure.  So after we left Walmart we all went home and promptly went to bed.  I woke up the next morning to find my van vandalized.  It was a Sunday and when we went to church we saw that not only was my car vandalized, several other cars in the neighborhood were as well.  People have no respect for other peoples property these days...

Never A Dull Moment - Chickens, Batman, Michael Jackson and Skunks

We had all kinds of exciting things happen here on Monday.  First, it started with the chicken in the house.  I had just taken Addy to school so I was home all alone in the middle of the day.  I was in the bathroom and when I was finished I walked out of my bedroom and SURPRISE!  There was a chicken in the hall right outside my bedroom door.  It totally freaked me out because I had both of the sliding glass doors that open onto my patio open.  My first thought was that I now knew what we were going to have for dinner - CHICKEN!  My second thought was that this chicken did not open the screen door by herself.   My third thought was WHO IN THE HECK DID???  I was certain that there was an intruder in my house.  Then I saw that the living room screen door was not shut all the way and I remembered that right before I went into the bathroom, I had gone out of that door to chase that same dang chicken off of the patio.  I left the screen open thinking I would turn right around and go back in.  But instead I went in through the kitchen door.  So once I established that it was only me and the chicken in the house, I went to work chasing her around the living room until I caught her and put her back out in the chicken yard.  Then she immediately went back to the patio and pooped on it.  Dang chicken!

That afternoon I picked Zac and Em up from school and then we picked up the other kids from the elementary.  Zac had just made this Batman weapon thrower thingy (I can't remember what he called it) in shop.  So he sat in the van and every time one of the elementary kids walked by he would hold it up and yell "BATMAN!"  like a crazy person.

What made it worse was that his arm looks diseased.  On Saturday he was helping Steve stain fence posts and he spilled stain all down his arm.  It actually looks better in this picture than it did the first two days.  His entire hand and arm were solid black when he went to church on Sunday.  He probably scared all the little kids to death with his diseased arm yelling "BATMAN!" at them.  I told him he should tell people that he has the same rare skin disease Michael Jackson had only it is having the reverse effect on him.

Then that night, as I was coming down the stairs, I happened to glance out the window just in time to see  a white stripe walk into our chicken yard.  It was dark so I could hardly see, but I was pretty sure that it was a skunk I was seeing.  I ran and got Steve and he armed himself.  We went out and walked all around the chicken yard, in the dark, looking for a skunk.  Is that brave or what???  But alas the skunk was nowhere to be seen.  A lot of the chickens were sleeping outside the coop and we thought it was because one was sitting right inside the door blocking the way for the rest of them.  (It was probably that one dumb chicken that was in my house earlier that I am constantly running off my patio)  So we pushed that chicken in the coop and started sticking the rest of them in there.  The were not liking it one bit.  So I decided to open the top of the coop and see what was going on inside there.  This is what I found:

So to make a long story short,  a whole brouhaha ensued.  Zac and Em were roused from their beds.  The four of us were trying to evacuate chickens from the coop.  Which surprisingly they were unwilling to evacuate, for as much as they didn't like being shoved in there in the first place.  Every time we would get them out, they would go back in.  We were scared we were going to be sprayed.  Anyhoo, the skunk is gone for good.  I had to take a shower and wash all my clothes when I got back in the house.  The house smelled like skunk all day long yesterday and the yard and coop still smell like skunk today!

I love my life!

Never A Dull Moment - I Believe I Can Fly

I was sitting on my bed folding laundry this afternoon and I had the windows open.  All of a sudden I heard this loud motor noise that sounded like it was right in my yard.  This isn't a strange thing.  I hear all kinds of strange noises in my yard all the time.  But it kept getting louder and louder until it sounded like it was right outside my window.  I looked out and was so excited to see the flying man right above me!  This guy lives near my mom and we see him in the sky all the time.  He has made this homemade flying machine with a chair he sits in and he just flys around the town.  We have seen him fly right over my mom's house, but never over ours before.  By the time I ran and got my camera he was already across the street and above my neighbors house.  I should have listened to my sister Farrah.  On my last post about the airplane in my backyard she said I should wear a camera around my neck.  Should have listened....

Then a few hours later the girls got out of school and we had to take my sister Lauren somewhere.  On our way back home the road was blocked by a bazillion cement trucks .  They had 3 of them parked in the street taking up the entire road while they were chatting with each other.  This is not unusual to have my way to my house blocked because it happens all the time.  There are so many houses being built in my neighborhood right now it isn't even funny.  For those of you who were at my house this summer visiting and there was only one house being built, we now have 8 houses being built and several more about to start.  CRAZY!  So they moved out of our way and I had Em take a picture of them.  Because there were so many.  There were 6 cement trucks.  What kinda house are they building where they need SIX cement trucks???  I mean for real.  This picture is horrible because my camera wasn't in my purse because I had just had it out to take the picture of the flying man; so this one is taken with my phone.

Never A Dull Moment - Dive Bombing

I'm gearing myself up to be able to endure duck hunting season in my backyard.  I have already been hearing the swamp boats out there staking out the best places.  You know how I feel about the swamp boats, right?  You don't?  Click here to read all about it.  So, once again it will sound like I am living in a war zone.  All day.  Every day.  For over a month.  The other day I was able to get a little early dose of war zone living.  

That morning I heard several gun shots.  I had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn't October already.  It wasn't.  I kept hearing gun shots intermittently throughout the morning.  Then all of the sudden it sounded like someone was dive bombing my house.  Like really.  For real.  I ran to my back door and looked out just in time to see a plane in my backyard.  Literally.  I have had airplane problems before.  Click here to read about my friend the Little Yellow Plane.  With all the buzzing the Little Yellow Plane has done to my house, it  has never been in my backyard.  See that black fence in the picture.  When I ran out my back door, the plane was only a few feet above that fence.  I ran for my camera but didn't make it in time to take a picture that go round.  It kept flying in figure 8 patterns for a while and stayed pretty low, but it never got that low again.

It really did make me think for a minute that maybe my little sleepy town had been invaded with all the gun shots and the dive bombing going on.  Who thinks like that?  I don't know?  I guess I do.  Never a dull moment!

"Rome" Around The Ward

A few weeks ago our ward Relief Society had our 3rd annual Fun Run/Walk.  Last year I wasn't in the Relief Society Presidency and they took crazy pictures of themselves dressed in Spandex and had them displayed along the route.  Someone (not me) stole those pictures after the fun run and someone (not me) started a Spandex Facebook page with them.  Although I am innocent, the blame was put on me.  A whole crazy ward ransom spandex facebook picture posting trick or treat leaving brouhaha erupted.  

Well, I am in the Relief Society Presidency now.  And we just had to come up with some kind of theme and pictures so as to not be out done by last year.  We came up with the theme "Rome" Around The Ward and those horrible posters above actually hung all over our church building for several weeks.  My kids about died when we first walked up to the church and they could see that picture hanging up on the door.  Steve didn't notice it on the way in but after Sacrament Meeting when we were sitting in the foyer, he did a double take and then gave me a look that said "I can't even believe it, but somehow I can" while he was shaking his head.  

The fun run was, well, fun!  And here are some pictures as proof.  Around the ward the trip begins with a kiss...

We had a great message by Pam after the run.

Then we had breakfast.

To see the post about how crazy fun my ward is, click here.

Yes, you will have that song stuck in your head all day.  We all had it stuck in our head every time we went to church and saw the posters (probably not the best song to be singing in your head during Sacrament Meeting).  It is stuck in my head right now as I post this.

And yes, someone did steal all the pictures again this year. 

 I don't know about you, but I think this lady is looking a little guilty.

For a little musical inspiration click here.

Low Budget Movie Making At Its Finest

For real.  When I say I live in the best neighborhood ever, I mean it.  See that picture above?  That is just a normal day in the hood around these parts.  I am the Relief Society Secretary in my ward.  We have a newly formed Relief Society Emergency Preparedness Committee that I oversee.  We like to call ourselves the Preparedness Heroes.  Thank you very much.  It is one of our duties to deliver a preparedness message to the sisters in our ward each month.  We decided that instead of some boring 5 minute lecture on food storage, we would make a 5 minute highly entertaining movie.  We made our first one last week.  It was so much fun.  Above, my neighbors April (The mastermind behind this whole thing) and her mom Veronica (AKA: Doom-n-Gloom).

Here is our fearless Relief Society President making her cameo appearance

She is also known as Alicia-n-Spandex

Our ward seems to have an unnatural relationship with spandex as seen at our Relief Society Abba party

But I digress.  Here we showed up on Lori's doorstep in our superhero costumes.  These kids are looking at us thinking, "Is this really my mom and grandma?"  We went to Lori's to ask her if she could watch our kids while we were filming on location.  She looked at us like we were stupid (the costumes had nothing to do with it) and said, "Aren't I already doing that???"  We just wanted to make it official.  Oh, and we needed them to star in our movie.

Yes.  We really are that awesome.
The 3 A's: Amber, April & Allyson

After April made me jump in Tricia's pool against my will.

My girls just HAD to jump in too!

The next night we filmed our sponsor message.  We were sitting around the church with our best thinking caps on and Tricia noticed that I had a sunburn.  She started twitching.  Apparently she cannot sit in the same room with a sunburn and just let it be.  She must peel it.  What a good friend.  After she did this arm, her need to peel was satisfied, but I was left feeling rather uneven (we all have our own little things that make us special) so she did the other arm too.

So where is this movie, you ask?  
Well, it is right here, I answer.  Enjoy!

Can't see the video, click here.

Wanna order some sprouts?  Our ward is doing a sprout order this month.  I can give you the info of the lady we are ordering it from.  Just let me know you are interested!

Never A Dull Moment - Possible Dead Bodies, Superheroes, Google and Gas

As some of you know, I live in one of the strangest places.  My friend calls it the Bermuda Triangle.  She lives on the same street as me, just up a ways, and she never sees anything strange.  I see weird things on a daily basis. There truly never is a dull moment here.  This morning, a little after 7am, I received a text from a friend that asked if a dead body was found outside my door.  I asked why.  She replied 'look'.  So I did.  Just in time to see a TV news truck packing up and pulling away.  So I have been watching the news all morning and I have yet to see my house or anything around my house.  This isn't the first time the news has come to my front door, but last time it was to interview me (that interview was later shown on CNN).  I did hear something right outside my bedroom window early this morning that sounded like a car door slamming, but it was way too early for me to  pull myself out of bed to take a peek outside.  I would just really like to know what they were doing there.  Maybe they found out there was a band of Superheroes in the neighborhood?

Yesterday the Google Maps car drove past my house.  I really wanted to run out and stand in front of my house and strike a pose.  But I was too chicken.  Then I spent the rest of the day regretting it.  I mean, when do you ever get a chance like that?  And I just let it go to waste.

There has been this incredibly annoying high pitched whining sound outside.  All day.  For the last few days.  It is really driving me crazy.  I asked on my neighborhood facebook page if anyone else has heard it.  That way I would know if it was just me or not.  One of my neighbors put on there there that it sounds like a busted gas line.  Oh great.  No one light a match!

*UPDATE*

I just called the news station and they said they were doing a story on West Nile Virus and since there are so many mosquitoes here...This is true. There are quite a few. So no dead bodies.

There was this other time when I saw a guy drive a backhoe machine down the street and start digging at 2am. I thought there was for sure a dead body involved in that one, but it turns out he was just on drugs.