Home life must suck!

Life can pretty chaotic around this simple house. At times next to nothing gets accomplished other than some mundane yet vital tasks like ensuring the children are breathing and fed. The mornings are especially nutty as I am out on my bike before the kids get up and Christi is left to feed them, feed herself, and get dressed to leave upon my return. She always gets this accomplished and when I get home the house appears as if nothing untoward has happened in my absence. The kids are playing and she is dressed and ready to roll to the office. To the best of my knowledge she has never fired up the car and driven around the block to put on her make up as the lady pictured above has to do. At least 3 days a week she is parked, car on and idling, under the olive trees across the street and applying make up. This is either further proof that Christi is indeed the most efficient woman alive, or that the make up lady needs to get a little bit better organized. I am personally thankful that the make up lady at least stops her car before application.

The new purse

Last weekend Christi jetted off to Houston for the weekend. She was visiting such a fine city to attend a baby shower for a friend she has known since third grade. The friend's mom purchased Pickle a little purse with a doggy on it. Pickle loves purses and puts anything on her arm that might resemble a purse. She also loves dogs. Combine the two and she has a new arm companion that makes her look like a miniscule Queen of England. I am trying to find her a collection of silly hats to wear to perfect the look.

Towing Pickle

I set out to ride this morning only to turn around before the corner after deciding today would be a great day for a trailer ride with Pickle. The boy and I used to hit out on rides with the trailer that would last for a couple of hours. I think the longest he ever made it was a little over 2.5. I would make sure to swing by construction sites and houses where I knew something interesting was going on. There is a farm not too far from here that we would frequent that has pygmy goats, emus and a camel. This was a big hit. Today's ride was not long enough to head to the camel plot but we did take in some horses and the ever odd occurrence of a dog on a fence!



He didn't look too comfortable.



Pickle showing me the horses.

Car is Totaled

I remember after my car was wrecked in college thinking how cool it would be if it was "totaled." It sounded pretty simple . . . I got a new car. It was cool then because my parents were nice enough to buy me a new car but I didn't give much thought to the "buy" part. It sounded like a simple exchange.

As an adult responsible for my own car payments, totaling a car is not so cool. Our beloved Wagon had been paid off and we were enjoying life without car payments . . . alas, that life will soon end. The insurance company has determined the car is a total loss and they are "buying" the wreck from us; admittedly at a very nice value. Even with what they insurance company is giving us, we will return to having a car payment for a little while.

College Football

Good Saturday TV returns . . . and today is a perfect football watching day. It's cloudy and starting to drizzle so it will be a "nice" day in Phoenix. The kids have taken their cues from ESPN this morning and Pickle immediately ran off to return "ready for some football."The Little Guy is having some identity issues. JP told him he couldn't put on his football uniform yet so he put on his baseball shorts and shirt (they have little baseball gloves all over them). He has on his LSU Crocs and a Sooners cap; then he convinced Pickle to put on a Sooners sock. They are excited although a bit confused. Geaux Tigers!

Everyone's Okay . . .

There was a car accident this afternoon:
It was a slow moving accident in a parking lot . . . we were turning left and another car was cutting through and we hit head on.
No, my head did not hit the windshield. The compartment that holds the airbag flew up into the windshield, but it sure looks like my head hit, huh? JP even thought it. The cop was sure of it . . . even though my head was not injured at all.
The kids were with us and of course they were both pretty upset. The Little Guy started freaking out immediately trying to get out of the car which caused Pickle to get upset. My door was damaged so it took me a few minutes to get my bearings and get out to get her. In the end the only injury was too my leg:Due to the stuff we had in the front seat with me, my legs were propped up a bit and the air bag cover scraped my leg causing a nice contusion/ abrasion. I believe it was also "burned" by the airbag because the pain feels like a burn and there is a bit of blistering.

We were on our way to go swimming with friends so I called to have Jer come get the kids and JP and I hung out for about 2 hours to handle the aftermath. Police response time was slow until a concerned citizen with some serious local connections called 911 again for us and two officers arrived within minutes. We are really grateful to him not only for helping us speed things along but also for buying water for us and being so generously caring.

Now we get to wait for the $$ estimate and navigate the insurance labyrinth. We'll keep you posted but I'm afraid we've seen the last of Wagon.

More Posts and Pictures Coming

Who wants to see vacation pictures? I feel a little cheesy sharing my vacation pictures . . . like the old sitcom scene where you make your guests sit and watch 300 slides of your trip. Well, this is what this site is for so I will be posting them soon whether you want to see them or not.

And how long have I been promising updated pictures of the house? I will take some snaps today and put them on to view later this week with an update on progress.

Last night we had our good friends over for dinner. I was in a mood to cook so I made these ribs again, a new baked bean recipe from Pioneer Woman, and a potato salad with vinaigrette dressing from Cooking Light. The ribs were tasty but the meat wasn't falling off the bone like last time. I will take more care in the boiling process the next time I do them; I think that makes all the difference. The baked beans were really good and there were lots of compliments . . . even JP liked them and he is not a huge baked bean fan. The potato salad was okay. I think I would tweak it to have some roasted garlic or something to give it a bit more flavor.

We had lots of tasty snacks to munch on pre-dinner and we could have probably stopped there. I made what I thought would be a cheesy vegetable dip but it turned out to have more of a cheeseball consistency so it was good with crackers at least. Lo brought Brie and crackers which was a nice treat and a yummy jar Bruschetta mix that was good on bread. I think we ate well last night!

The food was good but it was quite a zoo in here! With my wild children plus Lo and Jer's (almost) 4-year-old and another (almost) 2-yr-old it was pretty wild! The crazy thing is that there is an infant and another on the way (Kel is due in December) that will make our get together's even louder and crazier. It's kind of fun and they all get along really great for the most part. Pickle and her "boyfriend" (Kel's son) just fight over toys because whatever he has in his hands, Pickle wants and then she steals it and runs away and he chases her. I think it's hilarious.