Weekend vibes

 

I worked at the liquor store on Saturday, and had to tell Cameron that we got in the KSU cans of Bud Light, that he had been searching for.  I think it is funny how much cool stuff our little store gets in!  They have a good selection for a tiny place.  I haven't worked as many hours this summer as I had hoped, because they just have more help than they really need, but I do enjoy working there, and the "extra money" is good.  Is there really any extra money?  And I get to see my family when I work there - like a little family reunion.  :)  

This picture of Wrenley passed out after lake day cracks me up.  The girl goes hard.  And she absolutely loves the water.  They came for Sunday dinner.  Mallory asked if we could help her with some project she was doing to prepare for school starting.  Saige and I "helped" by entertaining the girls in the pool while Madison and Harper made little tiny reading books for 1st graders.  I was laughing about Wrenley - she would put her face in the water, come up choking, laugh like a fool, and put her face right back into the water!  She loves danger!  I am telling you, this one will give her parents a run for their money, and I am so happy to have a front seat for it!  

And there is Norma.  She is a hot mess too.  She spends a lot of her time outside....because she spends a lot of her time pottying on my floor.  She had a couple of good days, and I dared to think we were starting to catch on.  Nope.  Stubborn, or unintelligent, I cannot decide which.  I am not giving up on getting her trained, but for the love, I am starting to think shock collars may be in her very near future!  She has zero attention span, and when she does focus on something, it is 1/2 an hour of barking at a trash bag!  She is getting better about not trying to kill the cats - Winnie is thankful for that!

Tooth Fairy is a bum.  I absolutely love this dumb cat.  I cannot explain to you the sweetness and neediness that he has in him.  I don't know what possessed me to go pick up some abandoned kitties, but I sure am glad I did.  A series of weirdness brought us a lot of joy.  Of course, he is Saige's baby.  She thinks he is the smartest cat who has ever lived.  I am not convinced there is any brain in his head, but he sure does like to sleep on your lap!

Carlos takes all his snacks to the back of the couch, so that Norma can't get them.  She has figured this out, and is getting big enough that she can stand on her back feet and reach him.  He growls and barks at her, but she is not too bright and just wants his snacks.  He hates her so much!  

Harper, Saige and Evelyn had a sleepover with GG and Papa Larry last night.  They had all sorts of plans - hopefully GG survived!  Next week is our fair.  I hope we can spend some time this week getting ready for that, because at this point we have put in zero effort.  Procrastination at its finest!  I can't believe it is almost August.  July does this to me every time - fastest month of the year!

Lake day

 

I got this picture from Lauren.  She seems to be working hard and liking her job.  I heard from Cameron a little bit- he was trying to fix the ac in Ethel (Quincy’s spare car).  He was not successful, but it was nice of him to try! 

The girls and GG had their annual lake day.   I know this is always a highlight of their summer. 

Madison and the girls stopped off on their way to hang up some signs.   Poppy let them raid the candy stash at his office!  

This little girl has grown so much this summer!   She loves the water!  And the sand too I am told.  I wish I could have gone to lake day, but I was in yet another day of the hellscape that is budget time at work.  

My kids sometimes make “interesting” decisions.  When lake day was over, Mallory and Quincy had a sister date - they went together and got matching tattoos.  Now, I know that their father is just open minded enough to know that they are adults now, and he doesn’t get to say anything about this, but also doesn’t understand why you’d want to put something that permanent on your body.  And I am indecisive enough to ever think I like something enough to wear it for the rest of my life, so tattooing is just not something I have ever really considered.  I do, however think the ones they picked are pretty neat.  And it always, always makes me happy when they do things together voluntarily, I will always strive to have my kids be friends.   The world can be a pretty rough place - family needs to watch out for each other.  

Thanks Saige?

Anytime I leave my phone behind, I will come back to find it filled with the most random things.  Like videos singing to the cats, 100's of pictures of the cats, and sometimes pictures of people's feet.  I mostly blame Saige, although I believe the other girls are just as guilty.  I decided why not share?  You all should be just as entertained as I am right?  I mean, this takes real skills!  

 

Yesterday, I was telling Jim I am so excited because my zucchini are getting close to ready!  As we were going to town, the neighbor had out a giant box of "free zucchini" - reminding me that they shouldn't be hard to grow!  I did send the girls over to get a zucchini from the neighbor's box - promising them a chocolate zucchini cake, but the box was empty.  A few hours later, Jim showed up with a giant box full of zucchini and yellow squash from a co-worker.  I guess I should be careful what I wish for?  :)  Also, I guess I know what I am doing this weekend....because we all still want cake!

These kitties are getting big!  They are married now - Saige had a ceremony one afternoon and now they are committed forever.  They seemed like they didn't really care about the amazing ceremony and all the details she put into it.  I had to decline the invitation, because it was my dog's birthday....

Anyway, life here has been unexpectedly busy, a little bit stressful, a tiny bit crazy, but overall it is going well.  I am weekend ready!

insanity fair

 

When I tell you that the last couple of days have been crazy, I am not even sure I can do it justice on typing out the levels it has reached.  First of all, Evie is attending kindergarten camp this week. Basically a week long readiness session to help them learn how to navigate kindergarten.  She is excited about it. Like mega level excited.  Of course, how?  How is it even possible that she is old enough for school?   That in and of itself would have made me call this week insane.  But it just keeps giving!  

Monday, after getting home from WSU orientation at 10:30 pm, the girls and I decided loading the chickens that we were taking to the processor would be a much better idea than getting up at 3:30 am and doing it.  The chickens have to be off of food for 10-12 hours before you take them anyway, so this wasn’t going to be a bad idea. We had them all loaded, and in the truck, ready to leave at 4 yesterday morning.  As I mentioned, Jim was taking them in for me, as I had a board meeting.  He had to be in Chetopa at 7:30.  Chetopa is a small town outside of Parsons.  It is approximately 2 hours and 45 ish minutes away.  He texted that he made it at 7:15.  He did awesome.  I am thankful he was willing to take them for me. I know it’s not a fun drive, or a fun process.  I am super glad that it is finished though. And we have chicken in the freezer ready for chicken dinners this winter!   Side note, Jim has announced his willingness to take the chickens for me at any time because there is a county lake, where he was able to catch his first ever spotted bass while he waited for them to finish processing the chickens.  He was excited about it, but unfortunately, his phone died, and he did not get photographic evidence of his catch....he needs to go catch another!  I am glad he had fun!

The reason I got home so late on Monday night was that Quincy had her freshman orientation at WSU.   Now, I have been to number of these type of events.  This is our 6th kid to put into college.   This was, however my first time having an orientation last for an entire day!  We left early - got there at 8, and wrapped up around 4.30.  We had lunch in the dorm cafeteria where Quincy will be living this fall, we got a pretty good tour of campus. We were given  a crazy (CRAZY) amount of information.   This was my first time on WSU campus. I was truly impressed at all the services they have to help their students achieve their degrees, set them up in career readiness, and truly if you are not successful there, it isn’t for lack of effort on their part.  I hope she will be really happy with her choice.  Less than a month until move in day.  I’m happy for her - and sad about it at the same time.  I do feel better knowing that Colin lives literally 12 minutes away from campus.  I know he will be there for his little sis if she needs anything.  

And we did head over and visit with Colin and Spencer for a little bit.  Colin went with us to dinner - Spencer has a group project she was working on.  She has one week left until she finishes her Master’s degree.  I know how hard she has worked to get this done.  I am so proud of her!   It isn’t easy to work full time, go to school, and keep up with everything else.  She’s a rockstar. 

Colin told us there is this great little Mexican place but it is a little way away from his house.  We decided good Mexican is always worth the drive.  When we got there, I looked across the street and immediately knew where I was -there was Grace’s old church when she lived in Wichita.  The place where her boys went to grade school, where they made some of their sacraments, and had their Boy Scout events. I had been in that church probably a dozen times!  I never got there the way Colin took me, but hey I’m calling it a win for knowing where I was!  

I didn’t take any pictures with Colin, but I did want to ask Grace if she knew about this place so I snapped a photo.  She said she hadn’t eaten there, but James said they had.  I will say I would absolutely go again.  Some of the best enchiladas verdes poblanos I have ever had!  

On my way home, Cameron texted to tell me his car finally blew up.  We knew it was coming truthfully.  Lucky for him, Quincy has a weird little used car lot going on around here.  So tonight, I drove up to KC, picked him up from work, went to Lauren’s grandparents' house and helped him load up the rest of his stuff, and went to see his new apartment, which he got possession of earlier in the day. 

I made him pose at his work, and again at the apartment. 

And my photography skills are absolutely on point - look at that brand new, awesome colored, expertly installed new carpet (that I was totally taking a picture of, not that I cut off Cameron's head).  Lauren is going to continue to stay with her grandparents for a while because having Bella where she has a yard is a good set up with the number of hours they are working.   I am thankful to Lauren’s grandparents for allowing Cameron to stay with them while he was searching for a place to live.  They are hoping to save some money so they can get a house at some point.  For now, Cameron’s apartment is a 6 minute drive away from where Lauren is living, and they are working a ton of hours, so I am not sure they would be seeing each other anyway!  It was good to see Lauren, I keep missing her when I have seen Cameron lately!  

The apartment is really cute....and perhaps we will be in trouble when Jim realizes he is just steps away from a stocked pond, and a couple blocks to a Burger King!  Jim may be moving to KC!  :)  

I am sorry that Cameron's car blew up, but I was happy that Quincy had a spare care he could borrow for a bit while he figures out what he wants to do.  I am also happy I had a reason to run up and see his work, meet his co-workers, and see his new place!

Today, I won't be going anywhere, because I don't have a vehicle.  I gave Cameron the "spare" and my Nissan is back because the a/c stayed charged for approximately 3 days.  I am a little bit frustrated, and I am hoping they can fix it for a much, much smaller fee this time.  As frustrating as it is, I am secretly glad that when Jim drives me home from work, I will be stranded because I have not been home for days, have a list a mile long to occupy my time, and have a date with my pool!  

Weekends should be this

 

We had a much needed relaxing weekend after a stressful week.  (My stress was caused by budget setting woes at work). I got home Friday after an extremely long day, expecting to kick back and relax.  No such luck.  The kid we buy our hay from called. He had our hay baled, but needed help getting it out of the field.  Quincy, Harper, Saige and I threw the bales onto the trailer and the kid stacked it for us.  Then he drove it over to our house and parked his trailer so we could unload it.  I knew it needed to be unloaded, because it was supposed to rain on Saturday, but I was pretty beat.  As I was waiting for Quincy to finish with her dog sitting duties, Cameron texted to say he was thinking about coming home for the weekend.  I’ll tell you, the possibility of having a little more help with unloading hay made me extremely happy.  The girls, Cameron and I got it unloaded and packed away for winter in a pretty short amount of time. I really appreciate all their hard work!  

It was also nice to catch up a little bit.  I’m happy Camerons is close by again to have opportunities like these. 

We had Sunday dinner tonight.   Wrenley went from being the quiet, sit in the walker kid to being absolutely everywhere!   She is one to watch- she is fearless.  

While Cameron was home, he told me that he thinks my family wall and my blog are real nice, but not a realistic representation of our family.  He thinks I should make a “Dud of the Week” wall, where I have a weekly contest to see who did the dumbest thing, took the worst photo, or disappointed us the most.  So I made a sign and have a few ideas for designing a wall.  And I do have the wall space.  Cameron texted the family and asked for everyone’s entries.  Here are some of my favorites.  

Now, I was surprised at how willingly the others submitted their entries. And I am new to this so I think I am issuing a 16-way tie because I need more time to prepare the rules.  Starting next week, a person who submits the best entry, or disappoints me the most will be crowned.  Cameron thinks I should announce the winner every Sunday on the blog.  

I am adding that you cannot purposely do dangerous activities in order to win, the only prize is knowing you won for that week, and Jim and I will also be participating, so it doesn’t look like are not occasional duds too (hell it is probably genetic)!   I’ll post more when I get the wall display finished. 

 

I think we are in for more craziness this week.  We have a trip to WSU for enrolling, a trip to the chicken processing place, a couple of board meetings, Evie is attending Kindergarten camp, and more insanity.  I needed this weekend.  I am thankful for it, and I hope the next one gets here ASAP!