14 May
2019
12 April
2019
SnowMan
I have a lot of catching up to do. Lots of things to catch up on. I will go back and fill in the blanks, hopefully.
We got lots of snow yesterday and the day before. Not as much as the big snow but worse than the foot of snow we got a week or so ago.
Today the sun was out again. The calves seem to mostly be ok but the children are going stir crazy.
So, they built a snowman. With their fathers help. It was a good snow man. Big and sturdy.
Then I had the bright idea that they could paint it! I mixed up some food coloring in water and grabbed some brushes. They started painting. It was a it challenging figuring out just how to go about it but they soon had the technique down. Making sure to use up all of the colored water they painted it up pretty.
That thing is freaky. Now I’m scared to go to sleep. It’s outside the window looking at us!
2 March
2019
Family Vacation
I don’t have any pictures to go with this unfortunately. Guess I was too busy having fun.. Or something.
We had talked about going up to Rapid and spending the night for quite awhile now. First we were going to go before Christmas but that never worked out. Then we were going to go for 8’s birthday. The first attempt at that didn’t work out, so we tried again. We were going to stay the night, swim at the hotel, swim at Watiki, and do stuff.
I said that maybe we should shorten that a little. Perhaps we could just go up and do Watiki? The weather was looking decent. Snow, but not lots and relatively warm. So we went. I had been looking up hotels and Watiki on the internets. We got the feeding done and rushed to get up there in time for lunch.
HuHots was as delicious as always. The kids were even marginally well behaved! The Goblin Child loaded up on noodles and black beans. It didn’t seem to matter the sauce. As long as she was eating for once I guess it doesn’t matter how odd the food.
It was there that my poor husband who had never been thrilled about the trip to start with discovered that Watiki didn’t open until four that evening.
There we were finishing up lunch shortly after twelve with the hope of heading home around four. This made our plans a little more difficult. I hadn’t done my research very well. I had looked and looked at their website to make sure they were really open and see what all was included before we came up. It had never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be open all day and no hours had been evident. Great.
So we shopped. We went to the book store and introduced the children to the joys it help within. It was nice to see them enthralled. We looked at RV’s and all the accompaniments to see what is available to furnish the school bus someday. We went to Cabella’s before it turns completely to BassPro. The children were amazed by the taxidermy on display and we got fudge. Lots of delicious fudge. Finally it was late enough to head to the pool.
It was a Thursday evening in the middle of winter. I hoped we would have the place mostly to ourselves. It was packed! Probably it really was mostly empty compared to when tourist season is in full swing. There is NO way I would set foot in the place then. The toys were great. The kids ran off and climbed, sprayed, and slid for quite awhile as we sat watching, hoping it could go on like that. Of course it couldn’t.
Soon they wanted to explore beyond the kids playground.
We went down water slides, floated around the lazy river, and, finally, found a warm pool to heat up in. There were floating pads under a climbing net for them to run across. Over and over and over again. The Goblin child having been down one slide and deciding she didn’t like it wanted to spend the rest of the day there. 8 was more adventurous. He liked the slides and wanted to go again and again.
During all of this more and more people were coming in. Gross disgusting people. Half naked men with huge man boobs. Bulging women scantily covered with clothing but well decked out in tattoos. Everyone was covered in tattoos and hair. Ugly cheap looking tattoos. If you’re going to get something drawn on you that is going to last for the rest of your life wouldn’t you want to save up and invest in a decent one?
The worst thing was that we were all soaking in the same water. It touched them and then touched me. I don’t seem to be able to go out in public anymore. I can’t handle being that much together with people.
Food and beer were also allowed! The gross people were eating in and around the water. Even better.
We finally dragged the kids out and went to get more food before driving home. Strangely enough Perkins has become a favorite when we get to Rapid. We ate way too much breakfast for supper then brought the kids cookies and a piece of french Silk pie for me home with us to finish up when we weren’t so full.
The trip home was made through snow covered roads and fog. I hated it but was assured that they weren’t as bad as it seemed. 8 was sound asleep before we got out of Rapid. The Goblin Child made it slightly farther. Both of them slept all the way home so we got to listen to our book. They stayed asleep when we carried them in and we followed suit as quickly as we could.
It was a fun trip despite my various mistakes. I will not be pushing for another one any time soon.
24 February
2019
The Archer
I always see pictures of beautiful women shooting bows off their horses. I see them and get very jealous. So when I saw a bow for sale the other day I made an impulse buy. It’s nothing fancy a cheap little youth archery set but I couldn’t resist the thought of teaching Rusty to let me shoot it off of him.
It was warm enough the next day to try it out. I lugged a couple of straw bales out and set the in front of a shed so we wouldn’t shoot any horses by accident. Then my new toy was stolen.
The Goblin Child was fascinated. She worked and worked until she had the basic idea down. As good as I do at least. Neither of us have figured out the aiming and that silly stuff yet 😉 She spent quite a while practicing and was able to mostly hit the bales before she wandered off.
I even got to shoot it once or twice before other duties called.
13 February
2019
Winter Activities
There were hardly any children at the first Clover Buds meeting of the year. So we were able to sneak 8 in. He’s still a year or two too young. He stuck it out for a little while then left for Lala’s room and a computer to play on. Theo goal was to design a path to guide the little tooth brush head robots with vibrating motors to all the pants that needed pollinated. It was all about bees.
They has fun even if no plants got pollinated.
I have forced everyone kicking and screaming out the door as often as I am able. They have fun once they are out there. What could be more fun than trapping your sibling under the sled?
For Valentines day and the hundredth day of school The Goblin Child got a shirt to decorate with one hundred things. They both got shirts of course, how could I let one decorate but not the other? I only got pictures of her because he chose one hundred fingers, which meant twenty hand prints. It got messy.
19 January
2019
Robotics
The Goblin Child joined the robotics group this fall. The little kids one that is. I volunteered to help because I like the idea behind it and want to encourage both children to do this.
The kids, some of them, worked really hard and came up with some good ideas. In The Goblin Child’s group there were a couple of great older kids and they came up with an idea that was great. The theme was building a base on the moon. They had lots of Legos and a motor to motorize one of them. They had to build a moon base with ways to provide water, power, and food. Lots of other stuff too.
Their idea started with a simple fish tank. hen they added filling it with grey water that turned a generator as it flowed into the tank. In the tank were fish of course, but also water plants grown to eat and produce oxygen, gravel to help filter the water and capture all waste for future use as fertilizer. Then out of the tank through another filter and back into the water supply.
The oldest boy in the group designed and built a crane that turned around powered by the motor they had to work with. the whole thing was wonderful and well done.
Today was the competition. Everyone got up early to get their kids clear down to Sydney in time. All the work and effort of the last few months and now was the time to show it off. I was more than a little grouchy when there were no microphones, nobody could hear or see a thing of what was going on. The they took a break to decide on the winner. They came back to hand out awards to….
Everyone!!
Yay. They all got participation awards. The ones who did nothing got exactly the same as the ones who worked hard at it. There was no point to any of it. Sure the kids got to spend their evenings working hard on a project. I suppose they should appreciate the experience? But why bother? If the competition is so completely meaningless why not just get together and build with Legos? We could skip the long drive. We could skip the expensive products from Lego and use regular blocks. We could skip the team shirts. We could let the kids build what ever they want and not be forced into the yearly theme. It might be more fun for them.
But anyway.
18 January
2019
Old Fashioned Games
When The Goblin Child invented a game this fall she was so proud of herself. Mostly it showed that there is nothing new under the sun. I told her that her great grandpa used to play that game when he was a little boy. That when I was little he had taken me out in their backyard with a metal hoop off a wagon wheel and a stick. We had spent hours rolling it down the hill.
It didn’t bother her that she hadn’t found a new game. Instead she was even more excited that she was playing the game her grandpa played. They spent the warm weather rolling the hoop all around the yard.
27 November
2018
Quite A Cluster
Some cows got out this afternoon. Not a big deal but the father in law stopped to ask if I would help chase them in. Of course I would. As I hopped on the 4wheeler with him I absentmindedly called Daisy to come help. She didn’t come I worried a little then forgot about her amidst the whole cow chasing thing.
8 and I went to pick The Goblin Child up from the bus. Daisy is usually bouncing around wanting to come with. She wasn’t there. Again I remembered that she hadn’t come earlier either. Now I was worried. I tried to remember when I had seen her last. She had come with to feed in the morning. I couldn’t think of a time I had seen her since then. She couldn’t have not gotten out of the feed truck. Could she?
We had a very little time before the bus would be there, we could make it to check for sure. Barely.
Sure enough. I opened the door and out leapt Daisy. When we get out she will just sit there. She has to be told to come out with us and apparently I didn’t do so. It was dark in the quanset and I was rushing to make it to the bus. I haven’t seen if she did anything to the inside of the feed truck yet. She’s a good dog. I didn’t smell anything. Keeping my fingers crossed that she didn’t hurt anything.
Out at the neighbors driveway that is our compromise meeting place, the bus driver complained about driving clear to our mailbox, I refused to have The Goblin Child unloaded on the highway, we pulled to the side of the road and waited. At the highway two vehicles sat. A car and a pickup. Their people sat on bumpers in between hanging out, talking. The bus managed to squeeze around them and made it up the hill slick with snow and ice.
After unloading the bus went back down the icy hill and waited for room to pull out. The two vehicles still sat, unperturbed by the traffic they were impeding. While loading children I watched a FedEx van pull out from across the street and head down the hill towards the bus. I waited and watched to see if he would slide right into it. He didn’t.
Pulling into our neighbors drive we turned around as usual. Backing out into the road. I put the car in drive, and we went backwards. As usual when things don’t go anywhere near as expected, it took a moment to think it through. I put it back in park and we stopped moving. Back in drive and we slid backwards again. Well, that didn’t work. This time I tried reverse, we were getting quite sideways in the road, maybe I could straighten it out and find some traction further down the hill.
The car straightened. There was no more traction though. A couple more tries and it became apparent that the only way we were going was down the hill. Down to where those two… very nice people still sat. Apparently unaware of the traffic swirling around them, They weren’t bothered at all by blocking half of the road. Easing the car as slow as I could down the slick road I aimed for the sliver highway I could see that was unobstructed. If we could just get to some clear ground and make a run at it we could make the hill.
Of course this whole time the children are sitting, standing, kneeling, spinning circles, and talking loudly in the seat next to me. Of course they weren’t buckled in for the one mile of county road home. Not distracting or impeding my view at all.
I managed not to hit either of the vehicles. The… very nice people sat, still unbothered by how incredibly annoying they were and stared at us as we backed past them. On the cleared pavement of the highway we were able to get started and made it up the hill with no more difficulties. Then finally home. To Daisy.
24 November
2018
Giving Thanks, And Christmas Decorations!
We celebrated Thanksgiving by hanging the outdoor Christmas lights. We also planted the garlic in the greenhouse, finally. Then the usual run of family stuff.
Now it is snowing and seems like the perfect time to be decorating for Christmas. We were only supposed to get an inch or two but it’s been snowing all day and doesn’t show signs of quitting. Tonight the wind is supposed to blow. Almost blizzard conditions. Yuk.
Thankfully we are warm inside. The new, fake, tree is up and the children got it decorated. Well, one of them did. The other quickly grew tired of it and went to play on her computer. We are in the process of making the first batch of Christmas cookies, but one of them quickly grew tired. Not of making cookies. Just tired, and had to lay down for a nap. When he wakes up we will roll them out and cut them out.
19 November
2018
Child Proof
The Goblin Child is entirely too smart for her own good. Too smart for our own good. We always know it. She constantly proves it.
We were sitting at the table finishing breakfast. She decided to get herself one of her yummy vitamin C pills. She was pushing down hard on the bottle making lots of work of unscrewing it. Her father asked why she didn’t just turn the lid?
She looked at him in that disdainful manner only done better by Coyote and teenagers. Because, she said, it says push down and turn!
Of course it did! We looked at the bottle and realized she was reading the instructions for opening the child proof lid. Reading and executing them beautifully.
