Vacation!

We just returned from our tripacation. We had a great time. Blake had some interviews in Atlanta through the week, so we decided to get a cabin at the Army Recreation place on Lake Allatoona. It was great! My brother and his family live in the same town as where we were staying, so we got to spend a few days with them.

The kids all had fun, and were tired at the end of each day!

Blake's interviews went well, and hopefully I'll be posting more about that in the next week or two!

We swam, fished, went caving, went to Dave and Busters, the temple, bookstore, and so much more!

The kids all love the water, so this was just the perfect (and cheap!) thing for us to do!

Enjoy a few pictures and I'll be back tomorrow with another post.

Back from girls camp.....(no walmart bashing within.....it's safe jess)

I have returned safely from girls camp. I can testify that those bunks are not created for a 31 year old, fat, out of shape woman to sleep on. I woke feeling like I had slept on poorly padded plywood.....oh, wait, I did.
Since I was only going up for one night, I did not feel the need to haul up a air mattress, but only used a self-inflating sleeping pad. BIG mistake. See, I get motion sick on air mattresses, so I thought I'd be ok for one night. WRONG. Every pressure point on my body is aching. Asking me WHY??????
Now, for those of you who may be getting ready to go to girls camp....here are a few cardinal rules of meal time for adult campers/leadership.
1. Don't be shy, the girls aren't. When they sound the meal horn. Throw down whatever you are doing, grab your mess kit and RUN! They may be small, but they will eat everything there before you can huff it up the hill. It took Yahnira and I two meals to learn this. (Yep, we're slow)
2. Don't try to be all polite and nice-nice cool leader. The girls either like you or they don't. Letting them go first just means, when you do finally get through the food line you will get a cold hot dog, chip crumbs, and find that they ran out of fruit......
3. Bring snacks....trust me on this one. Sometimes what is served just isn't that great. Our second meal we were working on creating a giant water slide down a hill with tarps, and no one came to tell us it was dinner. When we got there, we got the leftover packets. They made some kind of hobo dinner. There was chicken, penne or spaghetti noodles, salsa, onions and bell pepper. Interesting combination. But, all that was left when we got there were a few burnt packets. Nice. Luckily, this one turned out in our favor, as there were some packets that got cooked int he oven in the kitchen. They weren't perfect, but weren't burnt to a crisp. I guess there wasn't enough liquid to cook the noodles, as they were had as legos. They were all out of fruit and salad. So for dinner we got.....2 chicken tenderloins. Dessert was good (banana boats).
4. If, when at camp, you have the choice between hot dogs and "hamburger". Go with the dogs......ask Yahnira. A much better choice. If hamburgers appear as cardboard and hot dogs appear Ok. GO with the hot dog. There are of course exceptions to this rule, such as if they cooked those cheap pink hot dogs....or if the burgers look fantastic. But if both foods look sub-par. Go for the dog.

and finally 5. DO not, and I repeat, DO NOT decide to try the yoplait fiber yogurt for your breakfast, for the 3 days preceding girls camp. You will be eating lots of gas producing food, bending over ALOT, and doing other things that tend to move gas.
Seriously, Fiber is over-rated.

And, lastly, I'd like to make mention that while I was promised a bed in the a/c kitchen/craft room (CANDI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), being cast into the cabins turned out to be a HUGE blessing. The weather at camp had been absolutely fantastic! Highs in the mid 80's with a nice breeze. At night, we actually got chilly! Meanwhile, the septic was having a problem, and the inside sleeping quarters were smelling like......well, septic gases!

So, my hats off to all you who can make it a week! I had a blast! The food really was pretty good, and the staff worked hard at making the meals! The camp was really nice, the weather perfect, and the people lots of fun! If only I was a little smarter and took a better pad to sleep on, passed up the fiber yogurt, and learned what "mealtime" means!

Too good to be is never true!

I am gullable. Yep, thats me. Tell me something, I'll believe it.
The kids had both broken their eyeglasses. No one seemed to be running any good deals, so we had planned to take them to Bham to America's Best. We have been SO busy, it just hasnt happened.
After Jonathon came back from Georgia with duct tape on his glasses, and his second pair missing an arm, and Kayleigh's only pair also missing an arm; we decided it was time to get out of the ghetto and get the kids some decent glasses.....again! (Jonathons are less than a year old...)
Jonathon has scout camp all week next week, and Kayleigh is walking around nearly legally blind, so today was the only day we could get them glasses. I call WalMart, they can see them. Great, Blake gets up to take them, as I am going to baby sit today, and frankly, I just didnt want to do the eyeglass thing. So Blake gets to Wal Mart and I get no less than FIVE phone calls to get the info I had written down and sent with them. THe WalMart Store numbers each pair of eyeglasses were purchased from, the date (or close enough) the exams were done, and each kids name and birthday.
WalMart tells us they cant fix Kayleigh's at all, and that they no longer carry her frames, so we cant even just have the perfectly good lenses put into new frames. Perfect.....
Jonathon's (whose glasses were bought in September) can be moved to a new frame, but it'll take at least a week. That pair was missing and arm, but had both lenses. So he'll get those in a week. Great. The other pair, the frame was somewhat intact, but a lense was missing from where the frame broke and the lens fell out. He was unable to find the lens (as it happened in a lake!!!!!) They say, we'll have to pay for the lens even though the frame (which is under warranty) broke, thus causing the lens to fall out and be lost....whatever. They aren't getting another dime from us, so Blake tells them to just replace the frames on the pair that is replaceable and we'll chalk the other one up to our stupidity for buying glasses at WalMart.
We have bought Kayleigh 2 pairs, and Jonathon 3 pairs, and EVERY pair has broken before a year was up! I know kids are rough on glasses, but not Kayleigh. Yet, both of her glasses have broken and just fallen apart.
Blake, dejected, frustrated, and WalMartified.....new word there....that simply means void of all tollerance and understanding after dealing with "friendly WalMart Associates", comes home. No new glasses. 2 Blind kids. Well, one blind, one blurry.
I decide to take it to the internets....Thanks Al Gore, this is a handy invention! I find a place in Montg. that has 2 pairs for 98 buck and change. Beauty of it is they say they'll be ready in an hour! Sounds great.....A little more expensive than America's Best 2 for 69. But by the time we drive to Bham and back twice (once for the exam and once to get them), we come out ahead doing the 2/98.
So we go. Like anything that seems too good to be true, it just can't be. They do Kayleigh's eye exam (which isnt included, I was quoted 55, but they need to dialate her eyes and that will be another 20) and they break the bad news to me.....Her eyes have gotten worse again. She is now nearly legally blind. Nice. And since her eyes are so bad, they included lenses won't work for her (DUH>.....saw this one coming) so we need to upgrade her glasses to the polycarbonate lens. Fine.....another 40 bucks. We pick her frames, and luckily the 2 pair she picked came from the proper grouping, so we are sitting right at 150 for her 2pairs. Not bad, but ofcourse, not the 98 and change they lured us in with. (And if we add on her eye exam.....)
So we go to pick Jonathon's glasses. All the kids frames look weirdly small on his 11 year old face. She prompts us to the "inbetween" glasses.The ones for teens. We look. He finds a cool pair of frameless glasses with magnetic sunglasses.....for only 169. Um...nope. Put them down, step away and go back to the cheap seats.
We finally find him 2 pairs in the right price range that dont make him look like the kid in Jerry Maguire. Then, she breaks it to me AGAIN. "he is a growing boy, boys are rough, I really wouldnt put him in the included lenses. It would be a better investment to put him in the polycarbonate lenses as well......"By this point I am wondering just WHO they would put in the included lenses???????A vegetable? My grandpa? Her vision is too bad, he is a growing boy......
So I relent, sure get him the polycarbs too.
Then we go for the sitting to measure their pupils and all that jazz. Would I like to buy scratch and loss protection for the lenses. It will only be 20 more PER PAIR. It would only be an additional 80 dollars. (Very friendly gal....she really was. But she must have thought my back yard grew money...) No thank you on the scratch and loss stuff.....they'll scratch them or loose them at some point even if I do pay for this. That is why they are getting 2 pairs! One for now, and one for when they ruin the first pair. Ok.
Would you be interested in UV protection? it is merely 15 per pair (another 60 bucks) but will protect my kids from the harmful damage of UV rays.....Nope, I'll pass. I'll just keep them locked up inside. It'll save me 60 bucks.
Would I be interested in joining.............NO>
Would I be interested in the cleaning kits.....free refill on solution.....NO.
When was my last eye exam, could they schedule me for an exam while I was there? NO.
I know it is their job, and that is where they make the money on the extras, but seriously, I thought they might try to sell me a Fairy to carry in my pocket and clean the glasses as needed.
Three hours, three hundred and something dollars later, I leave with 2 kids (one blind, one blurry......) and still no glasses. The one hour thing, yeah that was too good to be true too!
They would be ready today, but not for several hours, so we decided to come back and pick them up tomorrow.
I have to give them some credit though. As we were sitting for the fitting (oh no, do I feel a poem coming on......nah)we were joking about KK's ghetto glasses. (You know the ones WalMart said that couldn't be fixed!)Our supersales girl said, let me look at them. Took them into the back, and brought them out with a rigged-up arm. She felt bad for kayleigh. Said "as bad as her eyes are, she needs her glasses!" I said, WalMart said they couldn't be fixed....She smiled and said "WalMart lied, they wanted you to buy all new glasses" Which we did, just not at WalMart! So her ghetto glasses are now....well they are still ghetto. They have 2 different arms, but they stay on her face without he walking around with her head sideways.
Just so ya know.....WalMart still gets plenty of my money, but this week they have gone above and beyond their normal stupidity to try to convince me to quit spending my money there. I still have to share the tire story, but I'll wait till I am a little less irritated. Who knows when that will be???? :)

Still kickin'

Summer is keeping us busy! We've had lots going on, and I just haven't made the time to sit and type another long boring post.
I know you all are disappointed, but you'll just have to console yourselves with some pictures......

Soon, I'll have to vent about my trip(s) to WalMart to have my flat tire repaired. I promise, when I am done with that, you'll wish I was still being quiet!
Blue tongues are all the rage in Alabama!
Andrew loved the game Bryce got for his birthday! You would've

thought it was Drew's by his reaction!

The birthday boy!

Nearly everything he got was Indiana Jones, and he couldn't have been happier!

Sweet little Sam! Why are his cheeks so pink?????Oh, that would be Fifths Disease. By the time it was over, he looked pitiful from head to toe, but still was happy as a clam!

Blue lips and teeth! I wasn't thinking of the food coloring when I bought Bryce's cake. It was RED icing in the center and blue ribbons on the edge. They all had discolored mouths for a while, and had lots of fun showing their funky lips and tongues.

Importance of Teaching Water Safety.....Ginger Style!

We all know that swimming is a fun pastime, but can also be extremely dangerous. In our climate, you HAVE to swim during the summer, unless you just want to melt away. I am often intimidated at the thought of taking all five kids to swim.

Last summer, we "invested" in a Sidewinder falls for our kids to enjoy in the safety of our backyard. Living on base (at the time) we couldn't exactly put in a back yard pool. This summer, we have already spent many days enjoying the slide and pool at the bottom.

I have instructed the children on water safety, taking turns, using sunscreen, and all the other important summer rules. Andrew, always the obedient one, took the rules to a WHOLE new level.

Six inches of water and every time we go out, he puts on one of the zip up, flotation swimsuits.

We also discussed how to safely climb the slide......he chose the piggy-back method.

Unfortunately, he does not pay NEAR as much attention to the directions I give about how to clean his room, eating, not picking his nose, lifting the toilet seat, and a million other things!
At the very least we've got water and climbing safety down!

An unemployed husband, five kids, a Kirby vacuum salesman, and 2 Mormon missionaries!

I have this great inability to say NO! I could go on about that, but just knowing that simple fact is enough for now.
Last Sunday, I came home from church and told Blake we'd be feeding the Missionaries on Saturday, the 31st. I wrote it down when I signed up. Saturday by mid-day, we hadn't heard from the missionaries, so I decided to call them. I know sometimes 19-21 year old boys can be less than responsible, so I would call to remind them and set the time. The poor Elder was so confused by my call, as he said they had no dinner sign-ups for the evening, that I had actually signed up for June 5th. Oops....error on my end....well, ya know, sometimes 31 year old women are less than responsible, but are rather forgetful!
You all know I am a bit of an airhead at times, so I told them we had planned to feed them, and since they didn't have anyone sign-up, why didn't they come on and have dinner at five. They were grateful for the meal, but would need a ride. No problem. We actually got a second set of Elders in the ward, so they split the old pair and each got a new companion. Blake was to pick up 2 of the elders at 430. (This all happens around noon)
About 330, the doorbell rings. Kayleigh gets the door for me, as I am elbow deep in raw ground chuck. (WinnDixie had it on an awesome sale, so I bought like 20 pounds to freeze) I go to the door, and it is a salesman. A pair actually. They are offering a to clean one room of carpet for free. I knew there was a catch, but i also knew I was planning to have the living room carpet cleaned, and it it meant telling a vacuum salesman no.....ok. Plus, there is that HUGE problem I have of saying NO. I tell them the only problem is we are having company over for dinner at 5pm, and they must be done by then. They assure me it takes about 15-25 minutes, they'd be done long before then. FAMOUS LAST WORDS.
A few minutes after 4pm, the doorbell rings again. This time it is the guy with the vacuum. Kirby to be exact. Our guy, Jimmy, comes in and proceeds to put together this Buzz Lighyear Spaceship looking vacuum. Extolling its virtues, and assures me it does everything but cook. (Which by the way, I am doing as he is doing his presentation. I am trying not to be rude, but was very clear with the first two who came to the door, I was not interested in the presentation, just the free shampoo. They said no prob. as they get 25 bucks for each presentation they do, even if we don't buy) So Jimmy does his best to impress us. Showing us just how dirty our house is. The old....when did you last vacuum...um today dude, did you not hear me say we are having dinner guests in like 35 minutes????? So he vacuums....shows me the dirty paper. great....gross...move on. He asks if he can see the nearest bedroom. Um...at your own risk. I have five kids, none of which have the best room keeping skills. So he proceeds to vacuum Kayleigh's mattress. Yep, dust, mattress gunk....Can you shampoo my carpet yet.....
He is doing his spill...are you impressed with what this vacuum is doing? Sure, whatever. What vacuum do you own. Dyson Animal. I am very happy with it. Jimmy the salesman: Even after seeing how much it did not pick up? Yep! Sure am. Paid for is always better. I can live with a little dust.
He finally gets to the shampoo demonstration. FINALLY. I am by now trying to still act somewhat attentive, but am more concerned with the Beef Stroganoff I was cooking. By the way, we are now 40 minutes into the 15-25 minutes presentation. He starts with the....if we can make this affordable for you, would you keep it.
Blake had left right after he got here, he returned....with the missionaries. He takes them into the front room, as Jimmy is in the middle of shampooing the carpet they said would be "done and dry by the time your guests arrive." Phone rings...it is my friend who is having a family crisis, and not one of those things I can say...Can I call you back? So I am in the kitchen, stirring food, Blake is in the front room trying to explain to the missionaries why a man in a suit is shampooing our carpet, and Jimmy (the vacuum salesman) is somewhat shampooing the carpet. At no point in this did Jimmy feel the need to hurry it up. Blake asks me what he can do to help, so I mouth to him...Get rid of the carpet man. He laughs. HE LAUGHS!!!!!
I get off the phone, Jimmy is now done, putting the vacuum back into the boxes. I think by this point he realized he was taking it back with him. But, bless his heart, he tried. He does all sorts of fuzzy math, and even offers me a dollar for my Dyson!!!! Asks what it would take for me to buy his spaceship vacuum.
To which I reply, well, I guess my husband would have to have a job.
Jimmy, pauses and said, your husband doesn't have a job.
Me, smiling, as cheerful as I can manage: Nope, he doesn't have a job.
Jimmy: so where do you work.
Me, still smiling and cheerful: Oh, i don't work. I stay home with the kids.
Jimmy: You have five kids and neither of you have a job?
Me: YEP! (still smiling)
Jimmy (having just realized for certain that he wasted his time and had NO HOPE of selling this vacuum): So, if you could put down, say 42 dollars a day, and pay like 25 dollars a month, would you trade in your dyson and buy the vacuum today.
Me: nope...you'd have to get my husband to say yes, and that will never happen.

I go back to the kitchen and stir dinner, and mouth to Blake....HELP ME.
Finally, he and the missionaries enter the living room. If anything can clear a room, it should be this, right? Sell the vacuum salesman religion! DUDE DOESN'T BUDGE!!

He tries to get Blake to buy. AIN'T HAPPENING! The kids have decided they like Jimmy, the Kirby Dude. And they REALLY like the BuzzLightyear vacuum. Bryce asks if Jimmy is going to eat dinner with us. I laugh and say, No, he's getting ready to leave. I am sure he can't wait to get out of here. To which he replies, he is enjoying it. Ugh....
Before Jimmy leaves, we learn he is one of 2 children. His mom came from a family of 10 (5 boys/5girls). He have been doing this for about a year. Goes to a Baptist church, not southern Baptist, just plain ol' Baptist. He works 7 days a week, about 9-12 hours a day.
He is cordial with the Missionaries, asks them why they are here and what they do. But nothing beyond that.
Finally, Jimmy decides he has truly overstayed his welcome, and bids us farewell. But not without trying once more to sell us this vacuum. Kudos to Jimmy for trying, not getting offended that I listened to about one out of every 5 words he said, graciously weathering the onslaught of 2 eager LDS Missionaries (one of whom was a REAL greenie! TWO days out of the MTC!), and then finding out that the people he just spent an hour and 15 minutes (oops, I mean "15-25") doing a sales presentation for have no job, five kids, and what was that????Oh yeah, NO JOB! He truly was dumbfounded that we would have 5 kids, no job (either of us) and still be smiling.
Maybe, just maybe, the next time he meets the missionaries, he'll remember the crazy sales pitch he had with a family in rural Alabama with 5 kids, no jobs, and a set of LDS missionaries and invite them in for a while!