Life with Boys!

A few Sundays ago a rattlesnake slithered into our yard.  The dog was barking and I told Dennis it sounded like the “I got something you should see” bark.  Dennis went out with a shovel and when I opened the back door I could hear it rattling!  So loud!  Dennis killed it and skinned it.  The skin is rumored to be in our deep freeze.

Sunday afternoon, Dennis asked me for a lid for the Tupperware and said the snake had almost crawled all the way out!!  with NO head and NO skin!  GROSS!!!
A few days later I got home and nothing had been done all day.  Kids off-mom at work= lazy boys and messy house.  So I laid on the couch and said I was on strike.  Dennis decided to fry up the rattlesnake…in the kitchen.  When it was time to eat, I tried to sit at the table and eat my left over tortellini but could not stand it.  All I could think about was that thing crawling out after it was dead!  The kids loved it and even offered to pay me to eat it.  I did not.
The next Friday night we all sat around the dinner table and Dennis asked me to get the app “predator calls”.  It is an app of screeching animals in distress to attract predators! Something, possibly a coyote, got our little ram lamb and Dennis is out to get it.  They spent hours playing those horrible sounds over and over. Drove me and the cat crazy!
The next day I went with them, against my better judgment, to the Buckmasters Expo.  Lots of booths of guns, knives, hunting equipment and “stuffed” animals (the zebra head was pretty disturbing).  I only went to go out to eat afterward and to get out of the house.  Can't do much else with all this rain!  Anyway, the boys and Dennis all bought turkey calls and Dennis bought a hog call so guess what I listened to all the way home (almost 2 hours)!  I did find a fudge stand!  YUM!
Now we are washing sweaty, stinky football practice clothes every night and buying spirit shirts in preparation for the first football game next week.  Preston and Grant will be playing varsity football and Ryan is in the marching band this year playing the baritone saxophone.  We have a jamboree game this Friday, the Night of the Gamecocks community pep rally and autograph session Tuesday night and the first home game next Friday night!  Love this time of year!
Preston was chosen as one of the Elite 11 in the area to watch.  Here is a picture from the article in the paper.

The boys have finally started school.  They acted like they were not going to let us take “first day” pictures but it is Preston’s LAST first day !  I had to go to work and left Dennis with instructions!

It is an EVEN year:  Preston in 12th, Ryan in 8th and Grant in 10th
After open house we had a football meeting in the field house.  I had to snap a picture of P and G’s lockers side by side!

Hey, Look what I dug around and found…. our very FIRST “first day of school” picture.  Preston’s first day of Kindergarten in Texas at Mountain View ES!  August 2001

Preston was 5, Ryan was 11 mos and Grant was almost 4!  Seems like yesterday and now we are receiving college admissions stuff by mail and  email everyday!
Sorry Preston, I tried to resist and could not:  Here is the Preston funny of the day…
M: hey you got invitations to apply to two colleges on email today, Troy and the University of  Denver
P: Colorado?!
M: yes
P: I’M going mom, sorry, Hasta la vista baby, skiing in the ALPS!
M: They will not let you attend if you don’t know the correct mountain range
P:  just kidding! I know it’s the Rocky Mountains, The alps are ……..somewhere else right?
M:  (look of horror)
P: like another country I mean, I know! gosh!
Maybe we should start at a junior college…with Geography!  Just Kidding P!  Love your sense of humor! Brightens my day!

Summer Highlights

Although I have jokingly said this was a bummer summer, we did have a few fun moments  Dennis “gently reminds” me that I am lucky to have this long of a summer vacation.  I “gently remind” him that he COULD have been a teacher and had summers off too!  The weather was the main bummer.  It has rained almost every day this summer.  It rained 95% of the time on our mini vacation to St George Island and by rain I mean FLOOD. (see a previous post).  I think we just had two full days with no rain last week!  CRAZY!

Ryan’s all star team got to be Biscuit Buddies for a Montgomery Biscuits (minor league) baseball game.  They were each announced and got to run onto the field where they stood with the players for the National Anthem.  They were given balls for the players to sign.  We had great seats behind home plate and Ryan even caught a t shirt from the t shirt cannon.

Ryan is wearing black shorts

I have enjoyed watching my hummingbirds this summer.  I have seen as many as 8 at a time!  The picture below shows 5.  One day when they were out of food a hummingbird ran into the windows of the french doors to let me know!  ( I am sure of it)

Preston has SENIOR pictures during football program picture day!  They take a group picture of all the seniors for the football program.

The boys were fine but the girls were in a tizzy because it was thundering, windy and about to pour more rain!!  and it DID! soon after.

Preston had to pose for several pictures because he was picked as one of the Elite 11 players in the area to watch this season!

My mom, Ryan and I went to a wildlife “zoo” in the boonies near here to see the baby lion, Thor.  We also saw cougars, tigers, bears, a camel, goats and much much more.

The bears waiting for marshmallows

Tigers getting raw chicken

Thor is 4 months old and harder to hold.  We waited too long to go but they will have a baby tiger soon and that is MY dream!  I will definitely get there when I can hold and feed the baby tiger!

We also got to feed some of the animals sweet potatoes!

While most of our summer days looked like this  (above) and had us dodging thunderstorms, we did get to relax, sleep and read A LOT!  I think I read about 15 books this summer!  Hopefully August will be sunnier and I can get to the pool or beach a few more times!

Last Days of Summer

After a RAINY, lazy summer, this is my last week of “vacation”.  I am catching up on laundry today while cooking for the start of our church revival tonight.  Tomorrow I have to go into work an extra day because I am the Case Study Committee Chair.  Boo hiss!  Dennis and I will ride together b/c we loaned his truck to a friend in need.  After work we will meet at a local restaurant with our pastor and his family, the revival speaker and other members of our Sunday school class to “feed” the pastors before the revival. Then to church for day 2 of revival.  Tuesday, I am going with Ryan and a group of kids to work in a Christian Mission    pantry and then on an over night trip to a nearby adventure camp with rope courses, zip lines etc.  I am in charge of fun games at night. whoo hoo  We will get back in time for the last night of revival Wednesday night.  Thursday is my first official day back to work   Friday after work, Dennis and I are helping chaperone our boys and the church youth group on weekend trip to the beach.  When we get back Sunday night I will be getting ready for a full work week!!!  WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE!!!

Dennis and I did squeeze in a night out for our 22nd Anniversary Saturday Night in between attending a memorial service in Florida and picking Ryan up from the movies with friends.  He found the perfect card that said things like “when our days are a blur of hugs and kisses and kid stuff and work, when we are balancing time for us, dinner time and family time, when we collapse into bed at night just laughing at the happy craziness of it all”.  I will admit that at times when we “collapse” into bed we are NOT laughing but just exhausted! BUT we DO LOVE our life and the craziness we share.  We can laugh at it 99% of the time.  We are thankful for each other, our kids, families and our life together.  It has been a wonderful 22 years! 

Although I did propose to a guy at church whose wife says that he wants to go to the movies and out to eat all the time and she wants to stay home:  WIFE SWAP haha! 

 

I took a picture of our wedding picture!  Look how young we look…and less stressed!

Our Growing Farm

I almost forgot to “blog” about the new additions to our little farm.  Dennis bought a little ram lamb so our “girls” can have a boyfriend.  Not sure what we named the little guy.  So many names were floating around: BAAAAob , BAAAArney and then “Hef” since he has three girl friends!

The girls took right to him and started playing with him.  He is the smallest one in the picture since he is a few months younger.

Before we let him join the girls, he had to get some medicine to help his tummy adjust to the change.  Learned our lesson with one of the girls.  My Uncle and Aunt got to help!

We also have “barn”kitties.  A mama cat showed up and was very friendly.  Later we found out that she had three little kittens.  Ryan has been visiting them and they will let him hold them and play with them.  No names yet.

Right now we have the beginnings of a fruit orchard with apples, plums and tangerines in the area with the bee hives.  We already had pear and fig trees.  Behind our house we have an orange tree and blueberry bushes too.  We have pastures for hay and grazing and we have 9 cows (1 is a bull), and the four sheep.  Who knows what we will get next.  Dennis and the boys are working every chance they get to finish up a fence so we can move the animals from one side of the land to the other. Farmer Dennis is LOVING IT!!  the boys-not so much! They are HAPPPY for all this rain!  Less work time and the ground is soft so the fence posts go in easier!

Reunion & St. George Island, Florida

Never heard of it until my Aunt Diane and Uncle Pleas added it to the areas where they are looking to buy or build a beach house.  Last year we spent some time with them in Mexico Beach and this year we headed a little east to St George Island.  It is a nice island community that reminded us of what Panama City Beach USED to look like before all the high rise hotels and businesses took over. We went a few days after the Coleman/Howe family reunion.

Lots of food, eating, talking and taking pictures!

Down the coast and across a 4 mile bridge

Preston and Ryan doing pull ups on the huge anchor at the entrance to the park where Uncle Pleas and Aunt Diane were staying.  Look at that untouched land for miles behind Preston.  Ocean on right and bay on left!

This was the last time we saw the sun!  We spent an hour or so on the beach before getting ready to eat.  The next few days, IT FLOODED! Literally.  Most of the time.

Two iconic places on the island… Harry As restaurant and the St George Lighthouse. This is as close as I got to the light house due to the rain but we had a nice dinner and DESSERT at Harry As!

During a brief moment of no rain or light drizzle, the men and boys went off to the bay and found tons of hermit crabs and a few blue crabs.  After delicious cheeseburgers, Dennis boiled up the blue crabs and he and the boys had another feast.  The sun tried to come out again but by the time we walked to the bay it was already cloudy again.  The boys fished and snorkeled.  I sat and took pictures in the heat!  NO breeze on the bay side

It was very scenic.  R and G found a huge crab and called to Dennis to help.

Hermit crab in there..see the tracks on the sand?

We went back to have “yellow” watermelon (which was very good) and get ready for the “4th of July” on July 3rd in Apalachicola.

Fireworks barge

Very neat area by the bay there.  They had all sorts of stores and restaurants in old buildings with Flags everywhere.  They had a band playing (“Kornbread”) and then a hometown veteran spoke and another community group sang a few songs ending with God Bless America before the fire works started early to avoid the rainstorm coming.  It was a nice patriotic celebration.

Then the rain started but was just a drizzle during the fireworks.  We tried to come back the next day in the pouring rain to eat oysters before we left and it was pouring!  Restaurants had hour long waits so we just hugged good bye and left.  Stopped at a Mickey Ds on the way home and did not turn off our windshield wipers for most of the drive home.  There were flooded streets and detours in Panama City and other cities on the way home.  Preston has some nice pictures on his phone.

From my phone: a view of our lovely weather and the streets in Panama City on the way home! And that WAS the DETOUR street!

We did have a good time and spent A LOT of time together eating, talking and playing a game.  Should have taken a picture of the 9 of us in the RV checking the radar on our phones and Ipad (when we could get a signal).  Hopefully they will find a nice place for us to visit more often and in better weather.  Still a few things I did not get to do on the island and I would love to go to Apalachicola again. 

Still waiting for the weather to clear up so we can enjoy the pool and maybe a quick water park or beach trip.  Maybe next week! Stay tuned!