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.

11 February 2019

Kiwi Crates

They’ve been building up all summer. The children beg to work on them we tell them to wait until it’s not so nice outside. To wait until we aren’t so busy with other things.

Now is that time.

It’s cold and icky outside. They can only play the Tractor Game and Minecraft so much. In between they work on the Kiwi Crates. It’s a great family activity. For the rest of the family. My inability to read directions forces me to forgo this pleasure. So sad 😉

 

10 February 2019

Girls Day Out

It seems like it has been cold forever but I know it was warm once. I know because we went out and played in it. heather brought Whitten and Brenna and Owen over and we climbed all over the hay bales and ran around out side.

Then to make a god day even better Tanna came over and she and Heather and I abandoned my poor long suffering husband with the children and went for a ride. The horses were crazed and zipping all over the place. We laughed and screamed trying to talk over the wind. Tanna found a hair ball, not from a cat but out of a cows stomach. Hard and round, like a rock but light as a feather. We inspected it carefully and showed it to the kids. They were distinctly unimpressed. Then sent it home with Tanna, its finder.

Then the cold weather moved back in and we returned to the indoors, hoping to ride again some day.

 

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.

 

 

 

28 October 2018

Getting Ready For Halloween

Fall and Halloween are always my favorite times of year. It’s been a busy summer and fall but we’ve still managed to fit as much fall doin’s in as possible. Maybe that’s why it was so busy.

We played in the leaves, decorated pumpkins, dressed up, dressed warm, went riding in the cooler weather, trick or treated, rode in combines, and even fit in a haunted house!

The trunk or treat in Chadron was fun, as usual, but so very crowded this year. It meant squeezing through the crowd and waiting in line a lot. It was still great but would be more fun with less people.

That same weekend, the great build up to the actual day of Halloween, there was a haunted house in the old Clinton school house. Sadly it over shadowed the trunk or treat and was all the kids asked about while we were trying to trick or treat. It was the perfect setting. An old abandoned brick school house. We went for the lights on tour with the kids. Luckily. It was scary enough with lights on. They would never have made it through the real one. We went back to Rushville for supper before returning for us grown ups to go through for real. Waiting in the former Gym was almost more than they could handle, even with cookies and hot chocolate. The high school kids who were doing it went all out and had a lot of fun dressing up. Best haunted house ever. Almost.

Corn harvest has started with rather bad timing. It didn’t stop us playing just messed up my schedule a little. I do love corn harvest. It goes so nicely with the whole fall theme.