Turkey lunch and turkey dinner

Evie’s school hosted Thanksgiving dinner today.  She had a few guests and was pretty excited to see us and show us around her school.  

I am not a big fan of school lunch, but Poppy legitimately loves it!  He got some rolls. He was a happy man!  

One thing I love about this time of year is the “disguise a turkey” Evelyn made her turkey into Stitch!  So cute.  All of them were incredibly creative and adorable. 

This turkey is going on a little trip to Texas, leaving tomorrow.  He is going with Cameron, Preston and Saige to watch the Bills play in Houston and then they are doing a little sight seeing, and then going to a Mavericks game and then heading back in time for Langsgiving and Colin and Spencer’s baby shower.  It will be a quick trip, but they will be gone when it is Jim’s birthday on Friday. Since it is a “big one” I told him I would take him out for dinner.  Because he loves me, he picked my fav.  He had a little drama with some tickets they were selling back, and was sort of distracted, so this is the entirety of what you get from him.  He and I also ran a few errands and between that and Mallory being kind enough to do my Sam’s club pick up, I think we are all ready for turkey eating festivities.  At least grocery ready.  Cleaning and prepping ready - hard no.  

I am now completely exhausted and ready for the good parts.  

 

Stuffing.

What am I doing?  Stuff-ing.  Walking from one place to the next messing with everything.  It’s how I roll when I have a large list and get excited about trying to get everything done so we can skip to the fun parts. And I am looking forward to the fun stuff.  Baby showers, ‘baby Dale’ making his arrival, Wrenley's first Christmas where she has wants and opinions.  Evelyn turning 7!   Jim turning 60!  Harper and Cameron having birthdays  I am trying to focus my energy on the positives/fun times.  This year has been a little rough.  And at times a lot rough.  I am trying to not let the rough spots define the entire year.

I am in love with my Bichir fish - they are so neat.  The original 2 were definitely sucked into the filtration system that we did not have set up correctly.  I feel terrible about that.  And I lost all of my cichlids in a ph and chemical fiasco.  I feel bad about that.  But the 2 new bichir are really cool.  These fish are known to be mildly aggressive.  I put some baby guppies in there, hoping they would have a snack.  Nope.  Still just as many as before.  They swim up to the glass when they see me - almost seems like they want to say hi.  Jim said the same thing - he feels like they are almost friendly.  They get to be between 18 inches to 2 feet long.  At this point, I am just thinking about letting them be in the tank without adding in any other fish.  I used to hate that.  I once knew a guy who had a 100 gallon tank with 2 fish in it.  It seemed like a waste to me.  Now, I am thinking he might have really been on to something.  Or maybe the fact that I have 4 other tanks set up, plus a stock tank full of turtles means I have my fish in other places!  

Sunday, Evelyn asked if we could have ice cream.  I said sure, and sent Jim to get some out of the freezer.  Wren had to go with them.  This is how the girl came back.  I guess she couldn't decide which flavor!  :)  and they found my stash of cool whip too!   Of course, if there is an adult that would stop them from raiding the freezer, it is not poppy!  

My baby Maude seems really large until I run into Saasy.  She is a Bassett that lives in town, not far from where I park the bus and across from my sister’s house.  Sassy is really large.  And slow.  Maude is big but still a lot of puppy.  She is ornery and not too bright with cars (or buses). Today, we had a washing machine repair man here.  Jim put all the dogs into our bedroom while he showed the guy to the machine.  Maude ate a package of saline nasal spray, and my good sandal.  The sandal was not ruined, but does have a couple extra air holes.  

Saige wanted spaghetti for her birthday dinner.  Evelyn loves spaghetti.  She ate a plate full and the next thing I knew, she was drinking a cup of noodles.  She makes me laugh. 

If you look close, you will see that I was sitting beside a nice fire while Jim was hard at work in the yard.  I mean, no I didn’t help him, but he looked like he had it under control.  

This girl just drips orneriness.  

The other day I posted that I like to stop and talk to the cows.  Turns out, it is an inherited thing.  

Friday night, the football team took on Holton in the quarter? Semi? Demi? Quasi? Finals.  The band had to play once again. Harper wasn’t too thrilled about it once again.  It was a pretty good game, and SFT did win. They will now play Hayden for the chance to move on to the state championship game. Harper was less than excited when they said that they would take the band on a bus to Hayden to the game this week. And she was absolutely thrilled when they said they were cancelling due to rain and not wanting to ruin instruments in the rain.  She is happy for cousin Alex and the team, and happy she can stay home and hear about it next week. 

They do work pretty hard to put these shows together and I am proud of Harper, Clayton and the rest of the band kids.  Your dedication and talent is appreciated! 

Last Friday, when it was Saige’s birthday, my bus para, Shae, decorated Saige’s window.  Why does Saige have an assigned seat, when she has not been in trouble?  Because she asked Shae and was allowed to pick out her spot!   Since she has to ride the bus with me due to being on my route, she also has to ride my shuttle with 5-6 graders.  They are a better group than last year, but they are sort of a mess and she is pretty patient with them.  Shae indulged her a bit. 

 How is that for some random stuff-ing? 

Happy 14th Saige!

Yesterday, Saoge turned 14 years old!  It is incredible to me that my baby is 14!  She is driven, funny, sweet, quirky, and a little bit sassy and snarky.  And we wouldn’t want her any other way.  She only wanted one thing for her birthday.  She wanted to get her nose pierced.  Jim and I talked about it, I am always ok with things like this- if she hates it later, she can literally take the ring out and it will heal up.  If you color your hair, it will always grow back in your natural color.  If you are doing things that don’t permanently change your body, what difference does it make?  To me it just doesn’t matter.  If she wanted tattoos or gages, I would make her wait until she was an adult.  Jim wasn’t quite as excited by the idea.  So he made a deal with her.  For a few years, she has struggled with taking pills.  As in refusing to even try.  He told her that if she could learn to swallow a pill then she could get the nose pierced.  She took that challenge, and we no longer have to buy children’s chewable medications for her!  

Friday, as u left for the bus, Saige wasn’t dressed yet.  I asked Harper if she would take some birthday photos for me.  It was an interesting photo shoot, but I like it!  

The football team played Friday night, and Harper and Clayton had to play in the band at halftime and before the game. Saige didn’t want to go, so she stayed home and watched a little tv.  We had to have her cake (that was actually German chocolate bars) last night after the game. 

We made arrangements to get her nose done today, and then we took her friends shopping and out for dinner. 

I was pretty impressed with the shop we had it done in, and impressed with Saige jumping in the chair, sitting still and getting what she wanted done without even flinching.  She did a great job!  And I like how it looks. I think it’s cute. She thinks she picked a ball that’s too big and will be changing it to a smaller one as soon as the time is right.   

She is happy she had it done and likes how it looks.   That’s all that matters.  I could have stood in the shop all day.  I sort of miss that kind of work. Of the creativity of it.  Watching people express themselves through art (tattoos) and piercings is fascinating to me.  I’m seriously considering taking on an apprenticeship for piercing.  How fun would that be?   

I took Saige and 3 of her besties shopping.  As girls this age go, these were pretty sweet.  They found a few bargains, and like lots of girls found a lot of jewelry and makeup.  We had a lot of fun and I’m glad I got to have the opportunity to spend time with them.  

Happy birthday to my Saige Grace. We love you more than you’ll ever know, and are very proud of you.  

 

Cause if one photo is good...100 is better

Last night, I had a township board meeting.  As I was sitting in the meeting, I was getting texts from Mallory, she was out looking at the northern lights, sending me photos and telling me to hurry, because the sky was really cool.  

So I listened to her and made a motion to adjourn.  I got a couple of weird looks since they were still debating an item that we have literally been debating for about a year and a half.  I would rather look at the aurora borealis than listen to more of that! 

Usually, when there is a prediction of being able to see the northern lights, at some point in the evening, Mallory comes busting through the door, wanting me to go look with her.  I always load up, because I always like little anomalies and weird stuff that happens.  Plus, how can you pass up a chance to see something so neat?  Usually, we can't see the lights with the naked eye, but taking photos of them will make them somewhat show up.  Last night, very different!  The sky was pink!  And the further you got away from town, the prettier it was!  I left town and turned off on the gravel pretty immediately.  I could dimly see it, but pictures were really cool.  And so I took a lot.  Because can you ever really have enough pictures of something?  And when I got home, I drug Jim and the girls outside to see the pink sky.  They were not nearly as impressed as I thought they should have been!  I will go to my dying day thinking this is worth seeing.  

I didn't get to see these with Mallory, but I am glad she talked me into busting out and seeing them anyway!

Now a little tale of Cameron.  Or a tale of  'only Cameron'  The boy had Veteran's Day off work.  He also had several days off that he has to use or lose by the end of the year.  So he decided to take off Monday and Wednesday and have a little mini vacation time off.  His plan - he was going to drive out to the Eisenhower museum in Abilene.  He asked me to go along, and normally, I would have, but I had to work and didn't want to risk not being back to drive the afternoon bus route.  (He assured me he could have me back in plenty of time).  When he got to Abilene, the Eisenhower museum was closed due to the Trump shutdown.  He was disappointed, and texted me about it.  A few minutes later, he texted to say he was going to make it a better trip, and drive on out to Denver to watch a Nuggets game.  I laughed a little bit, that is quite a detour?  He said well he wanted to watch a game, and that was only another 6 hours down the road.  Right before I left for my meeting last night, I got a phone call.  Cameron had safely made it to Denver, and upon trying to purchase tickets to the game, he discovered that the Nuggets were playing IN SACRAMENTO!  

Never one to be too upset, he decided to go to a hockey game instead, spent the night, went mountain climbing at sunrise, and is now headed home.  He said the mountain climb earned him some stuff from the wall of beef jerky at Buccees!  I am glad I didn't go with him, as it would have ruined his little adventure!