**Sigh**

TRMinator has been at 12 year old scout camp this week.  He’s technically not old enough, but they are letting him go because his birthday is in less than a month and he is already a First Class Scout. 

He has been looking forward to this for quite awhile now.  He excitedly signed up for the merit badge classes that he wanted to take (horse back riding was one of them) and had his gear packed for several days.

I’m sure he is having a great time and learning a lot.

I’m not!  I miss that kid!

It’s just not the same around here without him.  I miss those big brown eyes and that grin.  G-man has been doing a good job of stepping up and being the big brother and helping when I need him to, but he doesn’t sit down and chat with me the way TRMinator does.  I think I’m ready for my big guy to come home now.  Too bad he’s still got two more days!

That pack is almost as big as him!

Wordless Wednesday

A day at the splash pad

I realized the other day that my two younger kids only have a week and a half left of summer!  It feels like our summer vacation just barely started and now it’s almost over!  So I thought that I needed to get them out of the house and do something fun.  TRMinator is away at scout camp for the week, so I called my mom and we took the remaining two kids to a splash pad in Riverdale.  The splash area itself isn’t that big, but there is a big park with playground equipment surrounding it. 

They went and played on the playground first.

I was really surprised.  I thought the Princess would take to splashing in the water and the G-man would not.  She walked around for about 5 minutes, then wanted to go back to the playground and play.  G-man stayed and played in the water for quite awhile.

Finally the Princess decided the she could go play in the water- when we were about done, so G-man stepped up to the role of big brother.

They had fun.  Now I’m sure we’ll have to go back when TRMinator gets back!

My new toy

I may have mentioned in my last post that I got a new camera.  (Have I said yet that I got a new camera?  I got a new camera! (I don’t think I’m that bad!))  We’ve been taking it out and playing with it to figure out how it works. 

Of course my first subjects were my kids.

Then, we went with my parents to some fireworks at the little town next door to them. 

This was our first shot, just playing with the exposure time.  I thought it was kind of cool.

It was fun playing around and learning the different things we can do.  I’m sure there will be more!  Stay tuned!

What?!?!?!

You may have noticed the box in the left hand corner that says I need to get a new background for my blog… by tomorrow!  Apparently the website that I, and most of my friends, get our backgrounds from, wants everyone to get a new one for some reason. 

Well, I thought, “Pshaw!  My hubby is a software engineer!  He can design me up a new background!  And if he can’t, one of his engineers or techs at work can!  He runs a software company and they even have a website!  For Pete sake, someone there can make me a nice new background!”  Right?!?!!??  Nope.

He says that he’s not going to pull them away from the projects that they are working on to make me a new blog background.  Seriously!!  Where are his priorities?!?  Aren’t I the most important thing in the world??  In his world, yes, but apparently not in the company’s world.  Shocking, I know.  I’m still trying to process it.

He said that I would have to be happy with what he came up with for my blog.  So in other words, expect to see a blank background for awhile.  For some reason, my blog isn’t real high on his priorities.  Again, I’m shocked.  Maybe since I’ve called him out so publically like this he’ll get right on it!  Yeah…. probably not.

In other news, I got my new camera today!!  It’s a DSLR, and for those of you that don’t know what that is, I will write a post later telling you all about it.  I just got it today and I’m still playing with it and learning about it.  The one thing that I will tell you about it now is that it is 18 mega pixels.  18!!!  My old camera is 12, and I thought that was awesome.  I still haven’t pulled the pictures that I’ve taken off yet, (because I’m not sure how) so we’ll see just how much clearer they are.  Expect to see lots of pictures in the near future!  Yay!!!

My little angel…

(cue the choir of angels)

Aahh, my TRMinator, my first born, my eldest, the fruit of my loins…  The one who always is so eager to please and do whatever I ask of him.  A model child, really.

Holy cow he’s costing me a lot of money this summer!  Sheesh!!  It seems like if it’s not one thing, it’s another!  First of all, he had his science camp.  At least that was free, but it cost a lot in terms of time and gas.  Then next week he has scout camp, which was surprisingly not cheap!!  Next I had to register him for school.  Now that he is out of elementary we have the joy of  paying school fees.  (Not to mention a whole new wardrobe- uniforms!)  I also just registered him for a scout merit badge class… which wasn’t free.

I tell ya, it’s a good thing I love this kid and that he’s worth all this.  Otherwise I might have to kick him to the curb!  At least I have another 3 years before all the G-man’s expensive stuff starts kicking in!

What a GREAT camp!

It’s time to explain my wordless Wednesday.  I wrote several weeks ago about how TRMinator won a scholarship to a science camp on the University of Utah campus.  The time finally (in TRMinator’s opinion) rolled around for him to go last week.

 

We didn’t know anyone else that was going to his session to carpool with, so I drove him down every morning, then back again in the afternoon to pick him up.  Let me tell you, that was a PAIN!!!  I consider driving down to Salt Lake once a pain, let alone 10 times in the last 5 days!  (big sigh)  He had fun and learned a lot, so I suppose it was worth it.

On the last day there was an informal open house so we could see what they had been doing.  The made a sort of robot out of the Mindstorm Legos and raced them.

TRMinator and his partner got knocked out in the first round.  He wasn’t too surprised because something about his sensor wasn’t tuned right…  I don’t know, I tuned out once he started talking about sensors and stuff.

This is his robot.

I’m glad the driving is over, but I’m also really glad that he got the opportunity to go.  Next up!  A week of scout camp.  Man this kid is busy this summer!

Hmmm, maybe what they say about me is true

My birthday is in 2 days.  I’ve been told that I am hard to shop for.  When I’ve been asked time and time again what I want, I have no idea.  I suppose that could be called “hard to shop for” in some people’s book.  I choose to view it as, “you need to be creative and find something that I never knew I wanted!”  And sorry, I am going to be of no help pushing you in one direction or the other because I really don’t know what I want.

There’s really two parts to this problem.  The first is that when there is something that I think I might want, I just usually go buy it (on sale of course!).  The second is, I’m not really a recreational shopper, and there’s not much in the way of clothes and such that I get really excited about.  Also, if I am shopping for myself, I generally have to try things on and that gets tedious and takes too much time.  And I might be just a bit picky.  Hmmm, it’s a wonder I have any clothes to wear at all!

As for other stuff, I don’t really want anything for my house, it’s already decorated how I want it and I’m not really into chachki’s, I don’t want kitchen gadgets because I don’t use them, (that would mean I would have to clean them!) and I’ve got enough stuff for outside. 

Sheesh!  I don’t envy anyone that has to buy me a present for my birthday.  I am one tough chica to buy for.  So I think I need to wish Hubby a whole hearted, “Good luck!”

Wordless Wednesday

I’ll explain this later this week!

Moving day!

My parents have been wanting to get a new, bigger shed for awhile now.  A couple of weeks ago, they bit the bullet and ordered themselves up a fancy shmancy new shed.  While basking in the anticipation of the new one, they found themselves with the quandary of what they should do with their old one.  We told them that we could probably find it in our hearts, with enough cajoling and pleading, to take the old one off their hands.

So last Friday night, we went over and helped load the old shed up on the flat bed tow truck that my dad brought home from work.  While we were there, my mom also fed us dinner. (Seriously!  Sometimes it’s hard dealing with those people!)  My mom was a bit of a nervous wreck while it was being loaded, hoping that there would be no injuries, but no one got even as much as a splinter! 

Then bright and early Saturday morning (and by that I mean 6:00AM!!!) my dad drove it over to our house.  Hubby followed him in his car to make sure that he didn’t hit any pesky power lines, and TRMinator was in the co-pilot’s seat in the tow truck.  With some mad backing up skills, my dad got the truck in our driveway, missing our bay window, and positioned just right.

  

It was a little bit harder getting it off than it was getting it on, but we did it, (again with some of my dad’s mad skills) and viola!!  We have a shed!

Now I have room to walk around my car in the garage since all our crap is now in the shed!  It’s amazing! 

Next up, I’m going to paint it white to match our house.  I think I might wait a few weeks till it’s cooler, though.  It’s too darn hot outside right now!

(3rd), 4th (&5th) of July

This weekend was a smorgasbord of  Independence Day festivities.  Starting Saturday morning we had a neighborhood breakfast in the park.  I brought my camera, but left it in the car the whole time, so I didn’t get any pictures of the Princess’s outfit.  Every year I make her two 4th of July outfits, one shorts outfit for the breakfast on Saturday, and a dress for church on Sunday.  I may cut it back just to the dress next year, because it was really down to the wire getting them done.

Every year with the neighborhood breakfast, we also do a bike parade with the kids.  They all decorate their bikes and ride them around a bit.  The Princess was excited to do the parade because she loves to ride her bike.  The whole time we were decorating her bike the night before, she kept talking about the “bike festibal” as she called it. 

Well, the next day, for some reason we missed the parade.  None of us noticed when they called for the kids to line up and ride around.  When we realized that it was already over, the Princess was not happy.  So we told her she could go ride the walking path around the park by herself if she wanted.  Well, she wanted and I think she went around 3 times.  Let me insert here that the path around the park is 1/2 mile long.  So when you do your simple addition, you’ll realize that she went a mile and a half!  After her ride she was okay with missing the “bike festibal”.

That evening, our neighborhood got together in the cul de sac behind us and shot off fireworks.  Every year, usually the Saturday or Sunday closest to the 4th, we compile our fireworks, bring snacks and chairs and line up on the sidewalks to watch the show.  We’ve dubbed it, “Cul de sac of fire”.  Again, no pictures!

On the actual big day, we went to Hubby’s bother’s house for a barbeque and more fireworks.  This time I brought my camera!!  And I actually used it!

While waiting for it to get dark enough to light off fireworks, all the kids grabbed some clubs and went out of the golf course behind their house to hit a few balls. 

Then the sun finally started going down!

I must say, the fireworks were fun, none of the kids got hurt, but man!  It cold cold once the sun went down!

Then, we did our own fireworks in our driveway on Monday.  (It didn’t feel nearly as cold that night, maybe because I was a bit better prepared and wore warmer clothes.  Go figure!)

All in all, it was a good holiday weekend.  Now, I guess it’s really summer!

We are having technical difficulties

Well, I was going to have a new blog up today that had pictures from our weekend.  I had an idea in my head of how I wanted to make some collages out of all the pictures I took.  Since Hubby downloaded some picture collage software, I could do exactly what I had pictured in my head, right?  Wrong!!!   Long story short, I can’t get it to do what I want it to do, so now I have to wait for him to get home to figure it out, and worst of all, I have to try and be patient while he shows me how to do it.  GAHHH!!!  Sometimes I hate computers.  Stay tuned.  Hopefully I’ll have it up tomorrow.