Cowboys (sadly, no butts)

I was all gung-ho to get y'all some cowboy butt pictures. However, the digital camera is still a fairly new toy and CB decided to lay his claim on it for the night. And he's lots taller and stronger than me, so I let him have it. I do have some cowboy pictures, though:
I guess this one is SOMEWHAT of a butt shot.


Bronc rider gearing up to get out of the gate


Can we all say ouch? I don't know how those guys do that!


My favorite little cowgirl

And finally, my favorite cowboy of them all. Acting all "bad-ass" and "no, I will not smile for you, just take the damn picture you freak. What are you using this for?" Me:"Umm, myspace?"

So there you have it. Sorry, ladies, but it's the best I could do!

And back to normal we go. . .

I realized this weekend just how much I love our little town celebration. I love all the activity building up to it, and I love to see our little town bustling with hundreds of extra people. It's so much fun to watch the crowds slowly build and build and build until the big parade on Saturday afternoon. Then the final rodeo is put on Saturday night and the big fireworks and streetdance closed out the festivities. And then on Sunday, when all the cowboys have rolled out of town and everyone wakes up, it goes back to the sleepy little town we've become accustomed to. You're lucky if you see three cars pass on a Sunday afternoon. And on the Sunday after our little celebration, that decreases to one lone car driving down main street. A few highlights (and maybe lowlights) of the weekend:

-The rodeo was AWESOME! There were a ton of people and one of our local cowboys that's still in high school rode and scored with the big boys

-It didn't get nearly as hot as it was supposed to. In fact, I had to bring a jacket for the rodeo.

-Almost all of my very best friends were home and I spent Saturday night hanging out with them. I love my friends and I miss them all very much!

-My friend that I was a "special mom" for didn't win one of the royal ambassador crowns at the pageant, and I was more upset than she was. She's just fine with it.

-And finally, the best story of them all: The mini van got assaulted by a golf cart. I was driving down the road trying to get my friend to her house so she could change her clothes before the parade and a golf cart came out of nowhere and ran into the back of the van. I didn't stop because I figured a golf cart couldn't possibly do that much damage to a car right? Well, I was wrong and this is what I ended up with:

Needless to say, CB was pissed. Both at me because I hadn't stopped and at the random person that did it.

Later on in the evening, I was relaying the story to Glamorous Mom who started laughing uncontrollably and picked up her cell phone to call one of our friends. It turned out that the random golf cart assailant was none other than one of my darling twins that I babysat when they were five. I told her that if she didn't like me, she could just tell me instead of, you know, trying to run me off the road!

I'm glad that it was me though and not someone else. Because not everyone would react as if it were all a big joke. I took this picture for the sheer purpose of putting it in a frame for the poor thing.

Now it's back to normal boring life as we know it. And while it's a welcome break from the craziness, I wish it all would happen more than once a year.

She's got the best of both worlds!

So after much searching, painting, and possibly some internal cursing, I do believe we've got the whole Hannah Montana deal figured out. I was trying to replicate the logo from the show, but then I remembered the whole "I don't know how to draw a straight line" and "I don't have the right colors of paint", so I instead decided to just print the darn thing from the lovely interweb.

Diva is very anxious for the parade tonight and I have successfully pissed off CB because I told him that he has to be there to support his daughter. God forbid we go out in the community and socalize! Oh, the humanity of it all!!! And why would I want him to be cheering on his daughter when he could be out fishing! Aren't I just the WORST. WIFE. EVER?!?!? lol Not really, and he's probably not THAT mad at me. At least I don't think he is.

So, I'm now going to attempt to get some work done. It's amazing how much harder it is to be productive when you go to work in the middle of the day. It takes most of my energy to just keep myself on task, let alone actually accomplish what I'm working on!

Wish me luck!

Mini Van moping and other nonsense

So I'm still not over the whole fact that, yes, I own a mini-van. And I've noticed something since I've been driving it: I get passed a lot more often. Like, a lot.

My car was a Taurus with a 24 valve DOHC engine. I don't know what all that crap means (CB has explained it to me, but all I heard was "blah blah blah FASTER blah blah blah") So, we call it the racecar. And it is fast. And I do not get to drive it very often anymore. But, when I did drive it, I NEVER got passed. Except when we were in the cities because those people drive 900 miles an hour and I am not as experienced at the whole Interstate experience as I would like to be.

Now, however, I am passed at least twice. And I'm only driving ten miles. In the middle of the day. This drives me crazy. I never always drive the speed limit, so I'm appalled that I am still getting passed by people. So what is it? Is my speedometer off? Or do people just think "ahh, it's just one of those law-abiding-soccer-moms, so I'll pass"?? < / rant>

In other news, this week is once again our town celebration. The one where all the cowboys come to town. Diva will be dancing downtown tomorrow night after the kiddie parade. A kiddie parade which we had all decided we were NOT going to be a part of. Until last night when Diva heard her dance teacher talking about making sure you get your clothes changed after the Kiddie Parade so that all the little darlings are ready to dance. Then all of a sudden Diva HAD to be in the kiddie parade. "Fine." I told her. "As soon as YOU come up with something you would like to be in the parade, I will be more than happy to call and register you." Partly because I was not feeling motivated enough to try and be creative about a theme, but mostly because I get too damn competitive and when my kids don't win I take it as a personal insult. So, for the sanity of all involved, we were not going that route.

But then this morning, she had a plan. Now we are rushing to put together a Hannah Montana costume. Luckily she got a really cool microphone for her birthday and has long blonde-ish hair (it'll work), so I just need to buy her some trendy looking clothes and make a sign to decorate the wagon that will supply her lip-syncing music (which I bribed CJ to please please, PLEASE pull for her).

So, I'm off to research our new favorite TV show for fashion ideas.

Memes because I am overtired and cannot think of anything interesting to talk about

I could not get to sleep last night, and today is the one day of the week where I actually HAVE to get sleep because I have to be at work by 8:30. So, I have nothing to entertain you with other than these fabulous memes I've been tagged with in the past couple of weeks.

First, courtesy of Mommy the Maid:

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was 17 and experiencing the best summer ever (for a high school girl) friends, The Ex, fun, and lots of good memories.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Dealing with the fact that my baby was soon going to be a kindergartener.

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. Cool Ranch Doritos
2. Caribou Coffee milk chocolate mocha ice cream bars
3. M & M’s (mostly peanut butter, but I’ll take any kind)
4. Carrots and Tostitos spinach dip
5. popcorn with Tabasco sauce

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to:
1. Ice Ice Baby (Shut up! Do you know how many times I had to listen to my RECORD before I figured it out?!?!) by the one and only Vanilla Ice
2. Eternal Flame by the Bengals
3. November Rain ~ GNR
4. Freshmen ~ The Verve Pipe
5. Far Away ~ Nickelback

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Pay off bills!
2. Design and build a house exactly the way I want it
3. Have my loft apt. in NYC
4. Adopt 2 more kids
5. College Funds

Five bad habits:
1. Oversleeping
2. Not returning emails as promptly as I should
3. Playing stupid computer games
4. PROCRASTINATION
5. Forgetting to send cards/email/call people when I know they need to hear from me

Five things you like doing:
1. singing
2. Taking long car trips
3. going to Minneapolis
4. Flying
5. Tap!

Five things you would never wear again:
1. Layered slouch socks
2. Hypercolor shirts (seriously who wants to tell the whole world where you’re sweaty??)
3. Bicycle shorts with a T-shirt and a shirt clip
4. Suspenders
5. overalls with one strap not hooked (Totally keeping. Ugh!)

Five favorite toys:
1. My collector Barbies
2. the computer
3. Tassimo coffee maker
4. baseball mitt
5. football


Then, Courtesy of Jeannine

Eight Random Facts About Me

1. When I was about thirteen, I used to pretend to have either a British or Australian accent whenever I went out with my friends. They would then say I was their cousin/step-sister/foreign exchange student in town for a visit. This was usually just to get the guys.

2. I can recite the entire movie of Disney's The Little Mermaid by heart. Complete with musical interludes and everything. THAT's how many times I've seen it.

3. I can also make my nose sound like a ukulele.

4. Music is a huge part of my life. I'm constantly taking songs that I hear on the radio and applying them to my own personal movie soundtrack. Sometimes I hear a new song that will remind me of something that happened 10 years ago. It still brings back the old feelings and butterflies.

5. I love the nostalgia aspect of wooden roller coasters, but I absolutely cannot stand to ride on them. I get an instant migraine the second I get off.

6. I once saw a maintenance guy sitting on top of a roller coaster. We found out on the news later that night that he wasn't just sitting there and had actually been electrocuted and DIED right there!

7. I can recite the months of the year backwards just as easily as I can forward.

8. I used to sneak into R rated movies with my best friend when I was 12. We looked old enough to do it. Now, I constantly get carded because I STILL look 17.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but play along! Either in my comments or on your own blog. But make sure you let me know so I can come check you out!

I'm Over It. . .

Today is a new day and I’m (mostly) over it. Basically what happened is my brother overslept and instead of my dad being rational, he blew up at my brother. So, my brother has decided to quit his job, quit playing baseball and is moving back to his college town two months early. It’s probably good for him because there’s nothing to do here but it just pisses me off when my dad acts so immature.

The worst part of it all is that it’s not my brother he’s mad at. He’s still mad at my mom and instead of dealing with it in a healthy way, he takes all his frustrations out on my brother. Plus he’s got a horrible temper. He’ll blow up and then five minutes later he’s like “well why are you so upset”. I know it. I lived it for seven years. He’s the reason I moved out of my parents’ house just a week after graduation. It’s also the reason I never went back.

So I don’t blame my brother for getting the heck out of there. I think he’ll do better with more opportunities and more friends back in Collegeville. I just wish it didn’t have to be that way.

In other news, CJ had his first baseball game today. They won 29-18. Granted they play a little differently in that 10 hitters go every inning whether they swing once or ten times and they’re all little. But CJ did awesome! He had good base hits and was scored in both of his times on base. I just might get a sport outta this boy yet!

Anyways, now I’m off to go cruise around in my brother’s much-cooler-than-my-mini van Chrysler Sebring. I keep trying to think of things to do before I have to switch vehicles because it’s so nice to be driving a CAR. With a moon-roof and everything (or maybe it’s a sunroof. I don’t know which one is which.)

Also, I’m joining the bandwagon of people who comment on their own blogs. I wasn’t doing it because I’m a COMMENT WHORE and need to know how much you like me! Lol But then I feel bad because it’s like y’all comment and I just leave the conversation open-ended. So be on the lookout for GR comments!

No More Drama

I do not want to be the peacekeeper anymore.

I do not want my family to all call me after they have a blowout.

I want my parents back on speaking terms.

I don’t want to be the mature one anymore.

I want my dad to realize he’s slowly pushing everyone away because he cannot keep his mouth shut.

I want my brother to grow up and be responsible.

I want someone in my family to care about what they’re doing to ME and MY FAMILY instead of their own drama for five freaking minutes.

I want to rewind time to two years ago before all this crap happened and tell them all to grow up and get marriage counseling.

I want my husband to be more understanding when I need to vent about this stuff (I know he will be tonight and will apologize for the way he was this afternoon, but I still wish he would just GET it and take two minutes when I need him.)

But most of all, I want my real dad, the one that’s in California. I want to be able to curl up next to him and just cry. I want him to stroke my hair and tell me that everything will be fine. I want him to be able to be the dad that he wanted to be and can be now, except for the fact that he’s 2,000 miles away.

Hot in the city Country

We survived our first day of blasting heat. The outlook is bleak, however for the Glamorous Dad who DID NOT PUT SUNCREEN ON MY BABIES! Which has caused them to be sufficiently sunburned almost to the point of blistering. Needless to say I was LIVID. So, I will be lathering them up with SPF 982 to ensure that the blisters do not happen. Because I've had the blisters and they hurt like a mutha.

Evidently all the classes were really fun yesterday and we lucked out with the weather because it wasn't nearly as humid as it was supposed to be. But that sun was HOT. I was just outside this morning and it's actually quite pleasant out there. I just wish that the kids' outside activities were in the morning instead of at 11, 1, and 2. I'll just keep them lathered and hydrated.

I'm feeling like I'm really missing out on all the fun. Hopefully things at work will change in the next few weeks and I'll be able to actually watch some of the games and such. I am planning on taking this Thursday off to prepare for Birthday Insanity 2007. I'll be busy making fairy-sized cakes, stapling curling ribbon together for magic wands, and frosting cupcakes to look like toadstools.

I love all this party-planning stuff, and if I could do it for a living I totally would. In fact, the plans are sort of in the works for some friends of mine. And I think it would work because there are more than enough little girls in this town that would love a state-of-the-art party. So it's kind of exciting!

Now I'm off to drop Diva at her dance and theater classes, then tonight we're going to our first Cub Scout meeting where CB is going to be the Den Leader. It's so cute how excited my boys are about this whole ordeal. I'm just glad that it's started up again because CJ doesn't like the sports so much and needed something that wasn't PS2 to entertain himself with!

Back to Normal

So Redneck Sister is off to her summer job at a camp way up in northern Minnesota. And Foreign Friend is safely back in The Netherlands. Even though we miss them like crazy, I have to say that it was quite nice to be in bed before midnight last night.

It was, however, a highly eventful night. Diva and CJ started vacation bible school last night. So CB and I dropped them off there, then took a little walk together (it's nice to have my husband all to myself again too). Then the sky got really really dark and that icky green color that only comes when nasty weather is on it's way. Although we live in a valley where tornadoes are not supposed to happen, there was one here just 7 years ago (luckily we were out of town when it hit and our house wasn't damaged). That is still very fresh in my mind, so I was a wee bit panicked when the warnings actually interrupted a movie channel to tell us that there was severe weather.

We decided it would be much better on my paranoia if I had the kids with me, so we went and got them about a half hour early and headed over to my dad's house to hang out in the basement. See, we call our basement the dungeon because it's old and unfinished and there are lots of spider webs down there. Since my dad's basement is finished and equipped with a home theater system (with HUGE TV), we decided it would be better to spend the next two hours hanging out in his basement than in ours.

The warnings expired after 9:00 last night, and although we had torrential rains and high winds, there were no tornadoes that touched down.

When we headed home, CB and I decided to do what we do best when there is dangerous weather: Drive around and take pictures! While he didn't want to get up on top of the hill to take the really good pictures, we finally got out of town and this is what the sky looked like on the other side of the big old wall clouds that passed through:
Pretty, right? The other half of the sky was still black and lightening, but we thought this was just gorgeous.

Now the Summer Rec classes have started for Diva and CJ and of course it's 90 with 90% humidity. Wouldn't be proper otherwise. So I loaded them up with lots of sunscreen and water and am hoping they don't get too wiped out. I'm sure I'll have lots of good stories about their adventures in baseball, soccer, T-Ball and Theater!

Phrases I never thought I'd utter on our summer vacation. . .

. . .let alone utter multiple times:

-Diva, please do not sit on your brother's head

-No really, I'd be totally fine with staying home tonight

-Are you SURE you don't want me to just cook something here?

-Seriously, I'm TIRED of SHOPPING

-I don't feel like trying on any shoes today, thanks.

-I'm not having any fun spending money

-Do we HAVE to leave town? Again?

Thank goodness life gets back to normal next week!

School's out. For. Summer!

Yesterday was the last day of school for my little heathens darlings. Already they have been in trouble no less than three times. And I haven't been around them for more than a three hour stint.

I spent the last day of school treating myself and a friend who is visiting from the Netherlands to fun stuff like tacos and pedicures and Starbucks.

The pedicure was do DIE for. I can't remember the last time that I've had one, but I do believe it needs to be a monthly occurrence. Between the massaging chairs and the lovely minty foot scrubs, I was in HEAVEN!

The Starbucks was delish as well. I tried their new orange creme frappacino. It was pretty good, but nothing compared to the caramel ones that I love so much.

After all of that, we had dinner then headed over to my dad's to sit in the hot tub. It was a perfect end to a perfect day. Then Redneck mom came down to pick up Foreign Friend (she's staying with them. She was an exchange student with them 6 years ago.), enlightened us on all the drama that is CB's youngest sibling and blew it all to heck.

So, we have no plans for tonight, then we have two graduation open houses to go to tomorrow. After that, we're hoping that the weather cooperates so we can get FF out on the lake.

What are you up to this weekend?