Pinewood Hershey

Last week was the Pinewood Derby. Zac designed this lovely Pinewood Derby car to look like a Hershey chocolate bar. He didn't win but his car did great and outlasted many other cars in the race.

Yesterday his class had a state fair. They have been studying the states and each kid was assigned a different state. Coincidentally Zac was assigned Missouri, the land of his forefathers. He had to make a poster and travel brochure and do a report on the state. He also had to make a 3D display. He made a Missouri "Hall of Fame". He wouldn't let me take a picture of him with it, but here it is. I think he did a great job.

The Call Of The Wild (and I'm not talking about my kids this time)

My kids get on my blog all the time to play my bubble game at the bottom. Well, they are all really irritated with me right now because they HATE the anniversary song and it is really annoying and it disturbs their gaming. So, in order to please the troops, I.....changed the song. Mwaahahahaha. I think they are just irritated by having a constant soundtrack of their lives being sung to them. Tough stuff.


You know how on Memorial day we were going to go ride ATV's and we had them all loaded up and ready to go? Well, we couldn't let such an effort go to waste. So we kept them loaded all week long. Then Friday, when the kids were out of school, we hit the road jack and we didn't look back. We went camping. We had a BLAST. We had so much fun we stayed an extra day and let the kids miss Monday at school. Here are some pictures. Yes, my children are very dirty in the pictures. Being that there were no showering facilities about, we used the tried and true wet wipe bathing method at bed time. I tried the first day to keep them semi clean during the day but we would have run out of wipes within the hour, so I gave that up.

It was perfect weather, except for at night when we froze our bahookies off. We each slept in layers, jackets, 8 blankets apiece, and we were still shivering. We had the whole mountain to ourselves practically so that was very nice. It was hard to come home, but we all pretty much needed a shower so......

I am not kidding you, I am editing my slide show before I post it. I just deleted a picture and an Internet Explorer error message came up saying, "It seems the item you requested has been misplaced. Check your internet connection, cross your fingers, and try again." What the heck kind of error message is that?

Lucky 13 - Happy Anniversary Baby!

What a difference 13 years makes.

Thank you for making me happy for all these years. Keep up the good work Mister!

Love you forever, me.

Shining Happy People Holding Hands

I have been out of town for the past 4 days. We just got home not long ago. I have been wanting to do this all weekend, unfortunately I was not near a computer. That's a lie. Fortunately I was not near a computer (it was nice to have a break from real life).

I am not a confrontational person. I don't like to argue. I don't like to fight. I like everyone to just get along. I am usually the peacemaker. I don't like what happened last week with my Thinkin' Thursday. Every time I think about it, it make me feel sick.

I don't know who anonymous was. I don't even know that all the anonymous comments were from the same person. On average I have 80-100 different people every week read my blog. It could have been anyone of you. I don't know who you all are but I am sure that most of you are people that I know and care about and love.

I have had a lot of time to think it over the last few days. I have decided that it is time to give my Thinkin' Thursday weekly post a rest. I am not retiring it completely. I might bust one out every once in a while. But when I do they will be much less controversial. I want my blog to be a happy place where everyone gets along.

So I am sorry. I am sorry anonymous, whoever you are. I hope you will forgive me. And everyone else who had to listen to the unfriendliness that took place here in my little corner of the internet, I apologize to you too.

All you need is love, da da dan na da. All you need is love, da da dan na da. All you need is love, love. Love is all you need. Love is all you need. Love is all you need. Love is all you need........love is all you need........

And because I just came up with the title for my post and now this song is going through my head:

Flashback Friday - The Whole Shabangalang Gang

Kim, Kathy, Farrah, John, Kenneth, Candi, Odell, Kristy and Allyson

This is a picture taken at my grandparents house. This is me and my sisters and our grandpa (my mom's dad) and our cousins.

This Flashback Friday is a few hours early. I will be unavailable for a while and since I didn't do a Flashback last week, I thought I should do one for you now. Have a wonderful weekend!

Thinkin' Thursday - Uhhhhh, Did She Just Say What I Think She Said? Cause If She Just Said What I Think She Said......Shoot Girl We In Big Trouble

WOW! What the.....holy......WOW! Arggghhhhh. Seriously. Seriously. Oh my HECK! (you know you've lived in UT too long when you start saying things like oh my heck) Seriously. OK. Welcome to the Socialist States Of America. I have said it before, I will say it again. I am scared. I am really scared for the future of our country. She isn't the first person to suggest such a thing. In just a few months our country is going to choose a new president, and look who we have to choose from. Nice. It scares me. It really does.

So this is what I'm thinkin'. Since when did it become illegal for a company to make a profit? Oil companies are actually making less profit now than they used to. So let's just pretend here. Let's say that my dear sweet hubby, his company starts doing really well and he is in high demand. He finishes concrete floors, by the way. So lets say that he is in high demand and all of a sudden the supply of acid stain starts to run low. People still want him to come do their floors. But those same people who are demanding that he come do their floors, they have put restrictions on where he can go to look for new acid stain. So since demand is high and supply is low and the options open for him to get new stain are becoming more costly, he raises his price too. Well the governing regime sees this and decides to take over his company and his profits. Yeah, I wanna live in a country where that kind of stuff happens.

Did you know that 50 miles off the Florida Keys Cuba and China are drilling for oil? And other countries are looking at setting up rigs in the Gulf Of Mexico? Why don't we just drill for oil there ourselves? Or why don't we drill in Alaska where there is an abundance of oil? Because those are no drill zones established by congress. Here is a quote from a press conference with President Bush in April:

I've repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems. Yet time after time, Congress chose to block them. One of the main reasons for high gas prices is that global oil production is not keeping up with growing demand. Members of Congress have been vocal about foreign governments increasing their oil production; yet Congress has been just as vocal in opposition to efforts to expand our production here at home.

They repeatedly blocked environmentally safe exploration in ANWR. The Department of Energy estimates that ANWR could allow America to produce about a million additional barrels of oil every day, which translates to about 27 millions of gallons of gasoline and diesel every day. That would be about a 20-percent increase of oil -- crude oil production over U.S. levels, and it would likely mean lower gas prices. And yet such efforts to explore in ANWR have been consistently blocked.

Another reason for high gas prices is the lack of refining capacity. It's been more than 30 years since America built its last new refinery. Yet in this area, too, Congress has repeatedly blocked efforts to expand capacity and build more refineries.

And now, here is a pretty picture for you to look at:

So, one more thing about the little video up at the top. You know how I have said before that I think that main stream media is slanted and biased? Well, usually when you Google some newsworthy political topic the first few things to come up are for websites like The New York Times or The Washington Post or CNN or something like that. Try googling "Maxine Waters Socializing Oil" (or better yet, click on that blue googling word). It pulls up things like Youtube or various blogs. Hmmmm.......wonder why that is?

I Should Have Seen This Comin' At Me Like An Atom Bomb

Current Ditty Rollin' About In Me Noggin:

All Work And No Play

WORK! That is all we ever do around here any more. Work, work, work, work, work. And it was starting to wear us all down. Work on the old house, work on the new house, work on the yard, homework, work work. Poor Steve. I took lunch to him a few Saturday's ago and he was sitting there eating with this glazed over look on his face. I asked him what was wrong. His glazed expression didn't change. He just said, "I'm tired of building a house". My kids (and I)are really getting tired of trying to keep this house in pristine condition too.

So I decided that over the Memorial Day Weekend, there would be NO work. Only fun, fun, fun around here. Fun I say! So on Thursday I gave everyone an invitation to a "Fantastically Fun Family Weekend". The invitation stated that the weekend would start on Friday just as soon as the whole house and yard were sparkly clean (we were having an open house the next morning). The invitation also said that there would be no work going on around here, but everyone did have to clean up after themselves. Of course my dear children complained because to them cleaning up after themselves entails work. (lazy crackers)

We did have a perfectly wonderful work-free weekend. Here is our

FANTASTICALLY FUN FAMILY WEEKEND IN REVIEW:

Friday:

After all was left sparkly and new, I took the kids down to the local Wal-mart (said with a hick accent) and we bought us the new "National Treasure 2" DVD. (enough with the hick accent) I also let the kids go hog wild (dang it, it won't go away) buyin' treats and such. We got home, ate pizza and root beer floats, then got all snug in our PJ's and watched the movie. It was late. I was in my bed. I was in a horizontal position. And I stayed awake for the WHOLE movie. That is a pretty big accomplishment in these here parts.

Saturday:

After putting the finishing touches on our house, we left for breakfast at IHOP (my finger tried really hard to type "the local IHOP", but I resisted). Then we went to see "Prince Caspian" which I also stayed awake in, due to the fact that the last 1/2 of the movie was spent walking up and down the side of the theater with Addison where I could only see 1/3 of the screen. It sounded like a good movie, wish I could have seen the whole thing. Then we came home, cooked hot diggity dogs on the grill, and dined upon them to our hearts content. After dinner Zac and Steve went to the Blaze game and the girls and I played board games.

Sunday:

After church we went to my mom's house for a little cook out (wait a minute, who am I trying to fool? Little cookout. My mom does everything on a very grand scale). Let's try this again. We went to my mom's for a big ole yummy super spectacular cookout to end all cook outs. She invited some of her neighbors and we had good food and good fun. We left little Addy at my mom's house to spend the night so we could enjoy the following day.

Monday:

GRRRR...Sunday night we loaded (sorry, Steve and Zac loaded) up the ATV's so we could head out bright and early for a day of riding. Unfortunately it pretty much rained all Sunday night and all day Monday. :( No 4 wheelin' for us. After deciding that there would be no wheelin' of the fours, we went back to bed and slept in. Then we woke up, ate breakfast and went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Yes. I took my children to a PG-13 movie. Judge me if you must. It was a great movie, however I did not know it was about aliens. I might have given it a second thought if I knew that. That's all I need is to feed Zac's alien obsession some more. After the movie we were supposed to go to a BBQ at our friends house. We first went to pick Addy up from my moms house and ended up staying there and eating.

It was a fun weekend. A FANTASTICALLY fun weekend and I was sad to see it go so fast. Back to the nitty gritty, nose to the grindstone week days (I know, my life is so hard).

Anyway, I have about a million posts I have been meaning to do but have been putting off. Maybe I will get around to them soon. I did post 2 new things on my dad's blog. Click here to see.

Wednesday Morning At Five O'clock As The Day Begins.....

It's 9:00 AM. I just sent my two oldest children to school. I am completely and utterly exhausted. My day is just beginning.

We are having an open house tomorrow. Last night I told my kids if I took them to their school carnival, they had to wake up early this morning and help me clean the house. So I woke them up early. And I made them clean. And it nearly killed me.

It would be so much easier and faster if I just cleaned the darn house myself. I would definitely be more sane right now. But then I would be raising lazy kids who don't know how to work. And I don't want lazy kids who don't know how to work.

Could someone please come and teach my kids how to work? Oh, and while you're at it, I have a TON of laundry that needs to be done.

Now this song is stuck in my head:

Look No Further, I Can Waste Plenty Of Your Time Right Here

Today is Thursday. I had a Thinkin' Thursday in mind, but at the moment, I don't feel like getting all deep and stuff. Maybe later. But for now, a little mindless entertainment. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. Can you beat my high score?