Hate to see ya go!

Yesterday our good friends the Turcottes came down to visit. It was a special visit, mainly because there is really no reason but us to come all the way down here. They came to check out the new house and hang out, and Donny and Jeremy played golf. We had a good time. Friday night Donny cooked his pasta and it was better than usual. After dinner we went to the park behind the house. It was pretty hot though and after, like, 5 minutes we were already sweating even thought it was 8 o'clock at night. So after a bit we went back home. The kids went to bed and we had some drinks and watched comedy specials and such. Justin loved having playmates, but he really needs to learn to share. He plays a little rough and I don't think Ella was too into him, but he loved Marley. He would chase her around and they would laugh, he had a great time. This morning the guys went to play golf and we took the kids to the Aquatic Wildlife Museum downtown. Then we all met up at Chilis. We should have gone to Redfish Pizza, I don't know what I was thinking. Redfish Pizza, BTW, is the best pizza on the planet. I guess we will just have to get some and take it to Diamondhead so they will know the heavenly tasted that are Redfish Pizza. Anyway, they left a little after lunch, to get home and get the girls settled. It was nice having them, thanks for coming, y'all! We love ya!

A Fun Supper

Justin Hanging

Ella Hanging

The "Normal" Picture

Marley Hanging

Jeremy "hanging"

Can't get a good shot....

"Got you in a stranglehold, baby..."

Come on, give the dog a sip...

The fountian, Downtown Houma

The Courthouse, Downtown Houma

Aquatic Wildlife Museum

At the Scarlet Scoop, with the awesome double cone

"I'm leaving on a jet plane..."

"...Don't think that I'll do that again..." Well, we are back from Idaho. If there are any typos it's because I still have these stupid fake nails on my hands and can't type worth a darn with them on. We left last Tuesday and got back yesterday. Unfortunately our luggage did not feel it was important to arrive with us. The luggage includes Donny's car keys, our phone charger and all of our clothes that actually fit us. According to the website, the luggage has arrived in NOLA and should be delivered to our house before six tonight. Let's hope so. Anyway, our trip to Idaho was a great success, we had a lot of fun. We arrived around nine on Tuesday and Donny was really surprised that it was still light out. The next morning he went with my brother Wesley and Tommy (the best man) to go shooting out in the desert, while I went to the spa with my sister, Sara, and future sister-in-law Cheri to get mani's and pedi's. My thumb nail broke before we were finished with lunch. So we went back to get it repaired. Around five that night I looked down at my toes and all the polish was coming off! Needless to say I was not too impressed with that place. They did fix it the next day for free but it still didn't look too hot. Oh well. Wednesday night we had a good time hanging out in the room with my parents and aunt and others who were in for the wedding. We drank some beer and ate some pizza and listened to my aunt tell some pretty great stories. The next day the boys went golfing and we went to Boise to pick up the tuxes. While my parents were doing that my sister and I took Justin to Julia Davis Park in Boise, a place we went often when we were kids, on field trips and in Girl Scouts and such. We visited the Discovery Center of Idaho, a hands-on science museum for children. We also went to the Idaho Historical Museum, which I remember being bigger when I was a kid, but isn't that how it always is? That night was the bachelor/bachelorette party at a local bar in Mountain Home. Charleys or Chuckeys, something like that. My sister stopped at a novelty store and picked up some fun little games and items for the party. When we got there we found out it was karaoke night as well. We had a pretty good time. I won't bore you with the details (or the videos!). Tommy's wife Michelle flew in that night and was going to try to make it to the party, but her luggage did not arrive (sound familiar?) She finally got her stuff late Friday night. Friday was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which was held at a winery in Glenns Ferry called Carmelas. It was great. We got a bottle of Riesling that was just excellent. They have a website, but I can't remember it. It's on the bottle I saved, which is in my suitcase, which is continuing our vacation without us. Saturday was the wedding. I didn't post any pictures of the event, because I am waiting to get some pictures from some other folks, then I will be making a separate blog for all that. It was a wonderful time, something we will remember for a long time to come. On Sunday we took a day trip to the mountains, to Ice Springs and the Trinity Mountains. Ice Springs is a campground that our family went to a lot when I was a kid. It was one of my favorite places. There is a cave in the lava rocks, a large tree that fell across the creek years and years ago and a natural spring that we used to be able to drink from, but someone removed the pipe. Donny took a few clear, cold sips from the stream though. To clear up his Lupus, he said. It must have worked, he didn't get any clots on the plane! Justin and Julia (Wesley's new step-daughter) called for bears in the cave, but they were sleeping. Sara and I crossed the log, for old times sake. It was a little spooky on the narrow end, but then again, it always was. Then we headed up higher to try to make it to the top of the Trinity Mountains. This is a place that I fell in love with as a child, the first time we ever went there. The road weaves back and forth up the side of the mountain, above the treeline, above the world. You look out and can see across the tops of all the other mountain ranges, not for miles, but for days it seems. When I was younger, if I was upset or couldn't sleep I would close my eyes and go back to the side of that mountain. I would imagine looking out and could almost smell the crisp mountain air. Unfortunately we were not able to make it up that far, due to snow across the road. We figured we would not be able to make it; you can see the snow from 2 hours away, but we gave it a go anyway just to see how far we could go. We didn't make it above the treeline, but we still had a pretty good view. I'm glad Donny got to go with us, even that far, just so he could have an idea of what it's like. When we moved here he got to show me all the places he loved as a child and I never thought I would get the chance to do the same. We didn't make it to the Bruneau Sand Dunes or Craters of the Moon or McCall or Sun Valley, but we saw enough. That night I think the trip caught up with all of us. We were very tired. Overall, the trip was pretty great. There were a few instances that were kinda uncool, like crappy restaurants or crappy stepmoms, but we won't worry about all that. We were there for Wesley, because we love him, as I'm sure he knows, due to the boo-hooing that was going on at the airport. I started first, 'cause I'm a weenie like that. It's just because I never know when I will see Wes again. Sara flies up there all the time and even my parents make it out there at least once a year, but Donny and I don't, especially since we have decided that someone is going to have to die to get us on a plane again. We are not too keen of flying (and by "not too keen" I mean "deathly afraid"). He spent his childhood on the water and my family drove everywhere. I'd rather drive and see the sights. I know it takes so long but we live in a beautiful country and so many people just don't know whats out there because they are in such a hurry to get where they are going. Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses and when you do that, you usually keep your luggage with you as well. Riding the tram in DFW Looking Out Relaxing at the Best Western My Parents (my Dad kept a bottle of that on hand all week)

At the Discovery Center

See Sign

A cool desert storm

Penis veil!

Penis Straws!

My brother and his Bride

Karaoke Night!

There was hail during the rehersal

My mom knitted that, can you believe that?

We were randomly put in room 311!!!

The spring at Ice Springs

"The Log"

Probably the best family picture we have taken in a while!

"Hiking"

My "safe spot" on the side of the mountain that we couldn't get to :(

The most beautiful view

Thanks for being here baby

I was happy

Justin and his new step-cousin, Julia

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

So, today Donny finally went and bought a new lawn mower. I say "finally" a little unfairly because I have been telling him to just wait until after our vacation but it was really getting out of hand. The grass was almost 2 feet in some places, no lie. The starter cable on our previous mover broke the several weeks ago (and by several I mean a couple of weeks after we moved here) and while we talked about fixing it, that never really seamed to happen. So today we broke down, espcially since the dog went out to have a moment and we lost him in the lush jungle that was our yard (not really but when the dog would go out I would say "Hey, where is Luke?" and Donny would say "Hes right there" and I would say "Where?" He would say" Right there...haha, very funny"). Every time we would go outside together I would start to hum the Tokens. This morning started out the same as usual, with me being pissy as I often am in the morning, and Justin being restless, as usual. I decided to break the pool out early. We set it up and turned on the water, then went inside to change into a swimmy diaper. Well, I put on a swimsuit, Justin put on the swimmy. But not right away. While I was in his room getting his diaper and swimtrunks, he ran out and got in the pool. Naked as a jaybird. Is anyone seeing a pattern here (see Blog "Bad Day")? So Donny came home with our new mower, which had no idea the job that was in store for it. We gassed it up and oiled it and put that baby to work. After a minute Donny had to empty the bag...then he had to empty it again...then again, all in about a 5 minute span. After that he just left it off. Justin splashed around in his pool and I sat in a chair catching some rays and watched the action. Soon Donny got to the long stuff and the mower died. He backed it up and restarted it. Soon it died again. He quickly figured out that he couldnt just push the mower over the grass, he had to go back and forth in short sections, not unlike shaving your legs or face. He would mow a patch, then lift the mower to let all the grass fly out, then mow a patch, ect, ect. At one point he was going along and we heard a "THAWCK!" and a golf ball came flying out of the mower, going nintey to nothing toward the house. I screamed, Justin laughed and Donny got really freaked out because that could have hit one of us and done who knows what kind of damage. He stopped and we walked once again through the tall grasses looking for more golf balls. We didnt find any but he later ran over 3 more (thats how long the grass was), none of which sailed out like the first, thank heavens. He kept the back of the mower pointed toward the fence after that, so if another ball was under there it would not fly at Justin and I. He pushed and pulled and restarted and pulled the thing behind him. Your boy mowed that lawn in every which way possible. After a bit I got up and began to rake up the grass that was already cut. It was at this point, on one of the restarts, that the whole thing started to blow out this thick (thick) white smoke. I started hopping around and hollering "Turn it off! Turn it off!" I was convinced we had burned the motor up, basically lighting about $200 on fire, with a nice, fat patch of 2 foot grass left in the center of the yard. It was just some grass on the muffler though, and after a few minutes it cooled off. The yard was awfully smokey there for a minute, and Justin kept shouting "Fire!" Donny eventually got one half of the yard (the longer half) finished before we ran out of gas. The other half was all wet from the pool anyway. It looks like a real yard now and you can actually walk around (I'm serious, it was that long). Now the yard is clean, the pool is filled, the sprinkler is hooked up...and Justin is asleep on the couch. Thats how it goes, I guess. Oh well, it's almost 5 on a Saturday, time to crack open a cold one and think of some dinner. I'm still in my suit, I may go out and sit in the whale and catch some of those evening rays. I hear they are less harsh than the noon ones. Or is it the other way around?

A restless morning

Impaitent Swimmer Helping Daddy assemble the mower

Empty that bag, boy!

"Cheese!"

You can hardly see the wheels

The killer golfball

You-know-who

Is it a little hazy in here?

The (almost) finished product

Something Old, Something New

This weekend Donny and I did some shopping to prepare for our upcoming trip to Idaho for my brothers wedding. We fly out on Tuesday. We have convinced a good friend to take care of our house and pets while we are gone. Along with new clothes and such, we also made a trip out to Bourg to Louis Mohanna Furniture, even though we swore we would not purchase anything until after our trip. Well, of course that didn't work out. We found something really cute. It's a little more contemporary than I had planned on, but we really like it and it looks good in our house. The next day we spent the day at the mall and picked up a little for everyone. I finally used the Bath and Body Works gift card I got from my brother for Christmas. They were having a great special-buy 3 get 3 free. I was able to get just about everything they offered in the smell I chose. I skipped out on the bubble bath, since I take showers. I even got a candle that smells like me, which Justin wasted no time in picking up and spilling hot wax all over himself. he was a champ though, just came in whimpering, saying "Mommy, mess." It didn't even leave a mark. So now we get to start to pack, I've already started setting clothes aside in the front room instead of putting them away. We are looking forward to the trip but not the plane ride. Both Donny and I are not big fans of flying. In a bit I'll be heading out to pick up a few last minuite toiletries and things. Anyone know how to keep a 2-year-old busy on a plane for 6 hours?......

Old Furniture

New Furniture! Old Clothes

New Clothes!

Old Candle

New Candle!

Old Hair

New Hair!

Old Justin

New Justin! (Wait, is that right?)