I Think He Missed Me

Mark is away at Scout Camp this week...the lucky bum. Hundreds of teenage boys and eating camp food for a week. What more could you want! He just left Monday morning, but he missed me so much that he called me this morning and he wanted me to meet him for dinner. Isn't that just the sweetest thing ever! He's about 3 hours away, so I drove almost half way there to meet him. I picked us up a fancy dinner at Quizno's and we had ourselves a picnic.

Since I was meeting up with him, I had to come bringing stuff that was forgotten. The usual....a sleeping bag, super glue, fishing supplies, and Axis and Allies. Wait a minute...that game was a necessity that was missing from camp?

As a matter of fact, it was.

It appears that some of the boy played Risk last night. They had so much fun and were really disappointed that Mark didn't bring Axis and Allies. (I think it's a WAY longer game similar to risk....I don't really know)

I think (ok....I know) us getting together was really just so he could get the game to take back to camp, but we had a great time catching up before we had to part ways again.

I think I must be one really nice wife....and I might have felt sorry for him out there roughing it all week long. In their fancy tents. Sleeping on cots. At the beach. Why did I feel sorry for him again?

I Love Veggies...Part 2

Our little garden box is growing and producing veggies like crazy. For a while we had peas coming out of our ears.

Now we've moved on to carrots. And yes, it turns out our dogs love veggies. They obviously don't get that from me.

Next will come the green beans, bell peppers and eventually pumpkins. Our pumpkin plant is HUGE! We've never grown pumpkins before, so we're pretty excited about it actually growing.

There's also this huge vacant field across the street from our house. It looked so pretty this morning. A field of yellow.

Dandelions can be so pretty from far away. At least they are pretty now, until they start popping up in our front yard. Then, they will drive me crazy.

And Then We Celebrated...

While we were in Idaho we also had a family party to celebrate Emily's birthday and Walrus Day. What the heck is Walrus Day? Well, several years ago on Father's Day we were all together and we decided that Father's Day needed a mascot...if you will. You know.... like Santa, the Easter Bunny, Cupid....etc. We came up with the walrus to represent Father's Day, and now every year we celebrate Walrus Day.

So, we brought a bunch of decorations and we turned their house into party central. We turned a huge pile of these...

....into this.

Once all the decorations were up, we hung out and played with the kids for the afternoon. Jaxon made this awesome costume. It's Emily....and it looks just like her.

We also got to meet my parent's new puppy, Holly. She totally loves me. I wish our lab was still this small.

Then it was time for dessert. Birthday cake and Walrus Day brownies, of course.

The birthday cake was totally imperfect. Which made it perfect, and I loved it. It was so tasty and colorful.

The whole group of us...don't we just look like a bunch of party animals? I thought so.

After our bellies were beyond full and we put the kiddos to bed, it was time for the grown ups to play. Nothing says party like a crazy game of Apples to Apples! It was hilarious...we were all laughing a lot.

Once Steven soundly kicked our butts, we moved the party to the basement for a few rounds of Mario Kart. This was the battle of the losers. We thought Sarah might be able to beat Steven since he hasn't played that much, but it didn't really work out that way.

Before we left, we had to get in a few more pictures with the birthday girl and the walrus's....

Whew...This turned out to be a long post for such a short trip.

Speaking Of Crazy...

You want to know what's crazy? Crazy is leaving for Idaho at 7:00pm Friday night and driving back home on Sunday. You know what else is crazy? We are....cause that's exactly what we did this weekend. Mark's cousin, Riley just returned from his mission in Atlanta and Sunday was his homecoming at church. Despite the long trip, we really wanted to go and support him. Throw in Father's Day and my sister, Emily's birthday and we just had ourselves a packed weekend.

Saturday we hung out for a while at Mark's Aunt and Uncle's house. We got to see their horses, play on their four wheelers, and eat Aunt Fraun's famous jerky. Mark had so much fun that now he wants one....a four wheeler, not the horse. He's a little nervous around the horses.

Welcome home Riley! We are so glad we were able to come and see you.

I Blame The Garbage Man

Yesterday morning was really quite crazy. There is just no other way to describe it. Let me give you a rundown of what I'm talking about.

So, I got up and started getting ready for the day. It was 8:00AM and I was still in my pj's and I decide to check my email and catch up on my google reader. All of a sudden I hear the garbage truck down the street. I run outside to roll out our garbage cans...because of course we didn't do it the night before. That would mean being more organized.

Then I attempt to go back into my house through the garage door. Yup. I said attempt. The garage door was locked. We don't usually lock our garage door, so this has never happened before. So, I circle the house, and there isn't a single open window so I could break in. Crap. Mark's gone already. He had a meeting with his boss so I can't call him to come home and let me in. So, I head over to the neighbor's (in my pj's) to borrow their phone to call a locksmith. That was fun...especially the part where I had to admit we didn't have a spare key out in the garage. Our spare keys are in a drawer in our kitchen. Makes a lot of sense, right?

The locksmith finally arrives. I'm thinking he's a pro....it'll take him 30 seconds and he'll have me back in my house. Not so much.

He can't pick the locks on any of our doors.

Perfect.

My house cannot be broken in to.

That was the good news and the bad news.

The locksmith had to take apart the lock on our man door in the garage and use that to create a new key. He had some fancy contraption in his van and 20 minutes later he's got a key that finally worked to get me into the house.

Now it's 9:17 AM.

I have to leave for work at 9:25 in order to get there on time.

Awesome.

I blamed it all on the garbage man.

Until Mark got home and I was telling him this.

He locked the door.

Now That's Love

If you were standing in our kitchen looking into our living room at this very moment it would look like this:While standing there you might think...what on earth is on their ceiling? Then I would clarify things by letting you know that it is this: It makes perfect sense to have a balloon from Valentine's Day still up on our ceiling....in June. We aren't lazy. Mark and I just really love each other. A lot. And this is a visual reminder of that. Yeah, that's why it's still there.

Some Things Never Change

Growing up we were the kind of family that played a lot of board games together. One of our favorites was Monopoly. We owned several versions...Star Wars, Disney, The Classic, and my mom and dad even made a giant version of the game with a shower curtain that looked like the Monopoly board. Needless to say, I have played my fair share of this game. As a kid it was impossible to beat my older brother. Impossible! I think it became a challenge to see if we could finally beat him. So, now I'm a bit older and a lot smarter than I was as a kid. I should be able to win every so often, wouldn't you think? Yeah, me too. Unfortunately that is not the case. Ever since my parents have given us Monopoly, I have been trying to beat Mark at it. We have probably played at least a dozen times in the last 6 months or so. After all this time, I can't win...not a single game....and I keep coming back for more. It's totally like a challenge now. I don't think I'll be satisfied until I can finally beat him in Monopoly. It's funny how some things just never seem to change.

Tips

I saw this link on my friend Rebecca's blog. It was just too good to not share with you. It showed a bunch of dos and don'ts of newborn baby care. It was really funny. So, I thought I would show you a couple of my favorites.

Though...I'm not sure what's so bad about a TV over your baby's crib. I like to watch TV in bed...maybe they would too.

You can see all of their tips here.

Bonko Night!

What seems like a long time ago in a city not too far away, we were part of a Bonko Group. (I know it's really Bunko, but we had a guy that kept calling it Bonko, and it just stuck.) Well, our Bonko group reunited Saturday night, and boy was it hilarious. This one was all about weddings, being that it was close to Kevin and Debbie's anniversary...and they hosted the shindig. After we were done playing, Kevin and Debbie cut their cake. They claimed it's been in the freezer since their wedding just waiting for the right occasion to break it out. We felt so honored that they chose to share it with all of us.

Once we were done with the cake, it was prize time. The best part of the night!

Lennae and Chris won wedding license plate borders since they were the last one with the travel. I really hope they put them on their car....they did say that they needed one, since one of theirs was broken.

Chris and Jona won this beautiful hand covered binder. I think they were really excited about it. In fact, they were so overwhelmed by how special it was, they almost forgot it when they left. At least that's what they claim.

We were the lucky recipients of this lovely little prize package...a coupon organizer and one burner cover. What did we do to deserve such a prize? Well, I have to give Mark all the credit on this one. Let's look at his score card a little closer...

He won for having the most losses. 18 out of 24 is pretty impressive.

All in all, we had so much fun hanging out with them. We always leave with our stomachs hurting from laughing so hard. Oh, and Debbie the burner cover works great on our gas stove top! So practical and pretty too. Who knew?

I'm so lucky.