Back in the day...

People made their own beds. From wood. And ropes. And straw. Comfy.



Sometimes they just slept on a straw mat on the ground.
They did have cookbooks..
...but their kitchens left something to be desired.

Yes, they knitted, but only after they spun their own wool.

These guys were the original patriots. They granted us our independence from ...
these guys.

On Saturday, we went to a revolutionary war re-enactment. It was the first re-enactment I had ever been to. Mel and some of the kids have been to Gettysburg. Of course, Patricia was totally against it. You know, it's a 'family outing' and it's historical.

Translation: I might have fun and learn something. I hate it.

Naturally, she had a bad attitude at first, but once we got there, she defrosted. (She always has fun. It's the process of getting there that makes her drive us crazy.) After we walked around for a while and talked to people and snooped in on their tents, she asked if we could do it. You know, If we could be re-enactors. Are you serious? After I told her that we all would have to do lots of research and preparation in order to do it, she decided it wasn't worth the effort. Kinda. I still think she wants to do it.

Not for the faint-hearted

This morning when I walked into the kitchen, this is what I saw on the fridge:


Does this mean I'm offically old? I mean, I have a teenager now.

Introducing......Weber, the singing dog!!!

also what happened on 9/8/08

Standing in line for her first ever dance class, she does her most dignified pose ever. Do you like the one of her dancing with the rest of the class? No, she is not doing a solo performance. At least she's not supposed to.

September 8, 1995

Mel and I got married. No, it wasn't a romantic wedding. I wouldn't even call it a wedding. We had a small ceremony at the courthouse in Savannah, GA. I was huge with child. My fingers were so big, Mel couldn't fit the ring on my finger. My mother came along, and got hit on by some old guy with gold teeth.



So, it's been 13 years and one week. I am not going to scan pictures of us when we were young and newlywed. You don't need to see those pictures. Just be secure in the knowledge that we look tons better now. I'll make a list of 13 things you might not have known about us.

1. We met when we were in the Army. I lived next door to him in the barracks. So did his two previous girlfriends. Seriously.


2. We love to go out to dinner. Nice, fancy dinners. We like to go to restaurants that have a dress code. We love good food.


3. We also like to try out 'hole in the wall' places. So far, we've been lucky. For our anniversary, we went to the 'Blue Moon Cafe' in Baltimore. They serve breakfast and brunch. It's on Aliceanna St. in Fell's Point. VERY hole in the wall. (Guy Fieri from Food Network visited there on his show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives)VERY delicious food. The place usually has a two hour wait. Luckily for us, we didn't have to wait at all. We just walked in and sat down. I can't wait to go back.


4. Mel and I enjoy shopping. Really. We can go shopping for hours. It doesn't matter what it is. He loves clothes shopping. He'll even try on what I pick out for him to try on. I love it!


5. We used to take dance lessons. We really enjoyed it. Until we decided that we couldn't afford it anymore. Bummer.


6. We both love to play video games but never seem to have the time to do it anymore. I am better than him at most games.


7. Mel is a handy guy. He isn't afraid to take apart most things. If it's fixable, he usually fixes it too. I really appreciate that about him.


8. I love to cook and he loves to sample my cooking. He always eats whatever it is that I cook. Even if it's bad. Even if I don't eat it. He'll eat it. But it's usually not bad.


9. We like to do outdoorsy things like bike riding, hiking, and camping.


10. We take advantage of every opportunity to hang out alone together. Without kids.


11. We are the only members of our families that belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


12. Mel just recently taught me how to play the card game rummy. I totally smear him everytime we play.


13. We like to travel. Alone. Without kids. We fantasize about what that will be like when we have the means and the opportunity to do that.

The rare occasion we had to travel alone. Hawaii baby!!

too much for one post

I have so much to blog about, it's crazy. So, I am going to break it up into chunks. I'll blog the big events from the past two weeks over the next couple of days. It's crazy. We had a ton of things happen all at the same time, and I got overwhelmed and boycotted blogging. That's why I am going to ease into things.

On Saturday, September 6th, we planned to have a crazy triple carnival party. Since three of our kids were born within a month of each other, we decided to have a cool outside party for all of them and their friends. We planned a dunk tank, balloon darts, ping pong ball toss, matching floating duckies, ring toss, guess the candy in the jar, potato sack races, and tug-o-war. That's what we planned for 9/6/08. Hurricane Hannah had different plans. She rained out our party on Saturday. Call it what you may, but our ox was stuck in a hurricane. So, we decided to have the party on Sunday. As you all will see, it was worth the wait because the weather was totally fantastic.

Balloon darts

Mimi beating someone at the races

Some of the neighborhood moms decided to race against each other. Check out Misty on the far left.Yeah, I won!!! Sorry about the butt shot. See where Misty is? I don't think she moved. I think she just turned around. Totally fun. Totally. We sang happy birthday to each kid. Trystan turned ten on August 18th. I am not going to list 10 great things about him or list 10 reasons why I am glad he's my son. I'll save the list making for tomorrow's post.

Then it was Vivian's turn. She turned 3 on September 8th. Guess what else is signifigant about that day?

And last but not least is Patricia. She's not 13 yet. Her big day is on Friday the 19th.
I didn't really get a good count of how many kids were at the party. We had mostly neighborhood kids. Patricia invited a couple of people from her school, and we had a mysterious family from church who shall remain anonymous. (I'll only out myself and my family for breaking the sabbath.)

Here's the Tug-o-War line. I wasn't pulling. I was the judge. See Suzan? She was the ready, set, go! person. (whatever that's called) Yeah, the two loudest mouths at the place.

We gave out tickets to the kids and they used them to 'buy' goodies from the store. Patricia, Mel and I had a blast at Five Below shopping for that stuff. I am so thankful to all my great neighbors and friends for helping run the stations, serving food, running the store, and cleaning up. They helped make this the best party ever!

Labor Day fun

Today, we decided to do a little family fun at the C&O canal. It was about a 45 minute drive to Great Falls, MD to the national park. Do you know how the canal works? It's cool. This is a picture of a lock. It's like stairs in the water. The lock opens, floods the chamber, and the barge floats up or down the 'steps', then they close the lock and the barge continues on its journey.

This is the beautiful Potomac River. It's next to the canal.

We didn't do much walking along the canal this time because of the Bigfoot sighting. Fortunately, all we saw of him was this footprint he left.

And of course, you can't go to a place like this with all these rocks without doing a little rock climbing. She's a natural.