Compliments

My mom, Cheri, and I went to the Old Folks' Home today. Among the compliments the 3 of us received, my favorites were:

You have really great legs! Stand up so I can look at you
I really like your teeth. Smile for me so I can see them again
Boy, you sure do have a great pair of feet on you
You sure have some great looking shoes. They match hers too and they both look good
I like those shoes

Our flip flops were a hit. I sure do love those grandmas there. I love that we can have the same conversation 3 times in 10 minutes. You never have to think up conversations because you can have the same one over and over and over again.

Old Age

Nothing like work at 7 in the morning to get a bright smile on our faces

Seriously. Who doesn't love getting a bright and early start to their day?  As we found out on Friday, both Cheri and Cassie now know how to drive the big rig, so I'm not the only one that has to do it these days! I still have to do the highway driving, but that is a lot better than driving all day every day. I was able to take a 'rest' while Cheri drove us and it was much needed because waking up at 7 is not my favorite way to start a Friday. I say rest because it would be impossible to sleep with those 2 in the truck. Between them randomly bursting out into any sort of song, hitting me, or just being impossibly loud, you can't really do anything more than just rest in there. But I kind of like them so I deal.

And nothing like an impromptu camp fire/Harry Potter Marathon celebration!

Seeing as we didn't start the movie till well after midnight, we didn't actually get a lot of watching done, but we were successful on the sleeping portion of that night. I find when you get older (yeah, I'm going to consider myself one of those oldies) you don't really need to have a lot going on. I am content just sitting on the couch listening to my friends talk (or bicker, whichever the case may be) and relax. I became a pretty successful player of Angry Birds last night, and some of the others became puzzle masters. So you may think 'Retirement Home' when we explain what we do when we hang out, but I think for the most part we have a pretty good time. I sure do love Summer.

Danger: Bird Crossing.

In 20 years if there are no longer any birds on this planet, I will not be shocked or surprised. With the amount of birds that I see dead in the grass, its a wonder there are any left to fall out of the tree at all. While I was mowing along yesterday, I was in the zone and getting tons of grass mowed in not a lot of time. Suddenly I came upon an object in the grass. From previous experience, I have learned not to assume that it is just a stick or a leaf so I kind of slowed down but apparently not enough. It was a baby bird and I had too much momentum going on to be able to stop completely so it sucked the bird up right through the blades. It made a popping sound/sucking noise and all that was left was a lot of feathers. If you've ever seen Shrek, you will know what this looks like if you envision the bird that exploded and all the feathers that went everywhere. I could not believe that had just happened and I was so grossed out that there was a bird in the back of my lawn mower I could barely finish. I had a lot of visions of the bird not actually being dead and when I open the back for it to fly at my face in enraged fury that I had tried to kill it. Throughout the rest of the day I saw 2 more birds but I was sure to give them a 10 foot radius so my blades could get nowhere near them. Today, Cheri was kind enough to leave me a strip of grass to mow and right at the beginning there was this monstrous bird and it was gazing up towards the sky eyes open beak ajar just staring at me. Its legs were contorted into a strange mixed up jumble and its wings were spread wide. I obviously got a good look at it as I almost ran it over. Baby birds can go through my mower just fine but I wasn't interested in picking out bird from the inside so I avoided that guy as best as I could. Watch birds go on the endangered species list pretty soon.

Alright, my PETA moment is over.

So....in other news I have finally watched Batman for the first time....Taylor has tried to get me to watch it before now, but I was too busy. Or tired. I get insanely tired these days.

This is going to be an 'everything that is on my mind at the moment' post, so bear with me. If work is the only thing I ever talk about I'm going to lose audience members here and I have worked very hard to gain a reputation. This next story deals with my little brother.....uh sister....no brother. I think.

This little kid is my best friend. Every day when I get home from work he runs up to me and gives me a big hug. We didn't used to love each other like that, but he is warming up to me. He tells me when I go back to college (which he doesn't know isn't actually happening) he will miss me the most. If that isn't the most tender thing I have ever heard, I don't know what is. So I realize this isn't so much a story as it is a declaration of love to my youngest sibling, but just deal. 

Please enjoy this

Another Day, Another Dollar

Driving to American Falls and back 2 times a week can get pretty  monotonous.  To curb the boredom, me and Cassie my truck partner made up some games. The first one (my favorite) is when the truck is dead silent and neither of us are really paying attention to anything as we drive around from place to place. I wait for the right moment then turn to her really fast and scream at her or say rawr! or just made a loud noise. She jumps so high and makes a terrified face. I can do this at least 3 or 4 times in a day and I get the same reaction every time. It is so much fun for me. The second is at any given time to just say 'what are you thinking about right now!' Sometimes we are both thinking some pretty weird things and we can get each other laughing for quite some time. I realize these aren't actual 'games' per say, but they keep us entertained.

These are the hands of a girl who just fixed her own mower. That's right. I had a problem and I got down inside the engine and fixed it! It took me about a half an hour but I got the plastic bag that had wrapped itself around and around my air filter under my mower out of there. You could call me a professional now. Don't mind the band-aid...hurting myself is a regular occurance at work. 

This is what happens when you try to put the truck gate up by yourself. I thought I would just be tough and speedy and chain it up, but some metal caught my thumb and sliced it open all the way around in a circle. I have no idea how I do some of the things I do, but I thought this kind of looked like a ring of fire of sorts, and of course needed to document the moment. If I come out of this job in one piece, it will be a miracle. 

Half Empty

When you think something looks like a stick, it is probably best to examine said object fully before getting any closer. What I thought to be a stick turned out to be a dead mouse. I weed-eated right over it, which in turn caught the little guys body and flew it in the air, towards me. I do not love mice in dead form or alive, so this little turn of events was not my favorite part of today. Nor was the blazing heat in which we worked in. At 7:45pm as we were packing up ready to go home, it was 88 degrees. That's what kind of day I had. On the bright side (literally) I am a lot redder than when I started this day. Which means in a few days once the pain has died down, I will be tan! Today, things went wrong. Since we got yesterday off, we had to do double the properties today which meant we pretty much were guaranteed a 12 hour day. This morning the truck wouldn't start because the key was left on in the ignition, my mower completely ran out of gas in the middle of the grass, I ran out of water after drinking my full gallon, and it was hotter than five foxes fighting a forest fire. (See my sister's blog for explanation on that one).  If you think this is as complain-y as I can get, think again. It was just too hot for me to love today. Lets try again tomorrow. 

One tiny happy note: I painted my fingers tonight and they look marvelous. Thanks to my best Taylor for supplying much needed new colors.

The Riot Zone

What is with the lack of blogging you ask? Well, I will tell you. These family vacations are not for the faint of heart. On our way home from West Yellowstone, we stopped in this little family park in Rigby, Idaho called The Riot Zone. It had bumper boats, inflatable bounce houses slip and slide obstacle course and basketball, go karts, and miniature golf. Let me tell you,  I am not so great at normal golf, so people shouldn't wonder why I was even worse at the mini form. My 7 year old brother did better than me. Well, that's not completely true because his favorite way was to throw the ball in the pond and "have" to take off his shirt and shoes and go out and get it. I do have to say, I was a champ at the whole go-karts game. I am pretty sure my calling in life is to go be a professional driver of one of those things. I didn't know my life path before now, but I am almost certain it involves driving really really fast around a circular track over and over and over again.

This is from wiping my face off after go-karting for the 70th time. Pretty gross stuff

Eli was a fan of the kids-kart form of go-kart

Mom is a natural

Maybe it's my form? In any case, I am not a golfer!

Well that sums up Saturday's adventures. Sunday I had to drive my older sister home to Provo and come home so that was a 7 hour drive of happiness. And we've made it to today. We are headed off to the Burley Parade and tonight is a fireworks party at the cousins' house! Can't wait!

The Backyardigans

Stove top s'mores are the way to go.

Look at that golden brown perfection

If you aren't my facebook friend, fix that. I don't feel like repeating the album of today's adventures, so if you are looking for something more to this post, just go there.