my lips are sunburned.
no, these are not my lips.
if they were,
i would still wear the stuble proudly.
all i can say is this…..
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWAAAAAAAA
the end.
this post has been brought to you today by the slow-to-learn-lipped-burned-cursin’-mormon-blogger.
yesterday, down at the ol’ watering hole,
we learned some valuable lessons.
1: it turns out fear is a hard one to bribe.
this bad-boy of a slide made two 8 year olds go round and round in the line.
by the end, even the life guard was getting involved to get these chicks down the slide.
in the end, fear was able to be bribed, two smackers is still a substantial sum to an 8-year-old.
2: my sister-in-law and i took on the diving board at the same ol’ waterin hole and learned that if you start to cheer really loud for complete strangers they try even harder to do cool dives.
some aspired to do this:
and not to be outdone by speedo magic, tried to do this:
but most seemed to end up more in this category:
but we still kept cheering, which made some people try things they should not.
luckily, no one did this:
cause that would have just been funny.
what did we do?
misti worked some awesome magic on a touch-yer-toes split in the air move.
i myself went for the 360 degree turn while yelling “SUPERSTAR!”
chicka and i walked to the store today.
on the way there she spit 3 times until i told her to stop.
then when she did stop, she picked her nose and ate it.
i can see baby steps are still the order of the day in teaching chicka how-to-become-dateable in just 8 years.
“so, do you want her to be my victim or crash test dummy?” one of the cousin’s asked before escorting chicka away.
given the two choices, i had to vote for neither.
yesterday was the amazing race part of our family reunion.
we all had team names.
we were the avengers 
because WE TOOK THE WHOLE TOUR (a point that needs to be argued repeatedly still)
we were asked to sign the book on the roof by the tour guide.
we signed it the avengers, then put all our respective names….wasp…..giantess……captain america……..storm……
i am posting tonight because tomorrow, for the family reunion of the family that is directly descended from the loins of the hubby’s parents, is having an amazing race.
a race that starts at 0830, which is amazing if i make it at that time.
at this same reunion yesterday, they had a water slide
i was hot and wanted to slide down.
i climbed to the top,
properly stretched,
and let ‘er rip down the slid.
it was epic.
until i stopped about 3 inches after take-off.
i was too big.
it was like the fat kid at a party realizing he just popped the bouncy ball.
all the nieces and nephews were pointing and laughing at me.
don’t worry, the sister-in-law and i grabbed them by their hands and feet and proceeded to throw them up the slide.
the bouncing thud we repeatedly heard was satisfying.
i also learned that one of these is not wise to wear when attempting to slide face first down slide
although it looks good dry, all padded and comfy-like.
when wet, it tends to sag, droop, and be the very last thing on you to dry.
*sigh*
some of my youth left me yesterday in that 3″ of slide i conquered and it appears it is never coming back.
a few lessons learned in the past few days.
if you see a doctor walk into the office carrying these:
with a little jar of acid to take care of this:
it is ok to do this:
and go a little limp in my arms as bird did this morning.
upon seeing her terrified face, the doctor realized what it looked like and explained that the channel locks were for opening the bottle of acid, not her foot.
“mom, jasper keeps meowing so i checked on him and he has a dead mouse in the house.” keats woke me up at 1 am to tell me.
upon looking at the carcass before me, i remembered that the last rodent my cat brought to me ‘dead’ suddenly jumped to life and ran.
i did not want history to repeat itself, nor did i feel like chasing a mouse around the house at 1 am.
i will admit that when i poked it, i was nervous, really nervous.
i threw a towel over it to see if it would start moving under it,
no movement.
i put a bag over it, then watched for any movement,
no movement.
finally, getting my courage together, i picked it up and threw it away.
my fearless waker was nowhere to be found.
he remembered the resurrection of the previous mouse and was safely in his room with his door shut tight.
bird and chicka picked some green beans from the garden for me.
they wanted to clean the beans ‘just like the olden days’
this is what i came down to see as their version of the ‘olden days’:
evidently the ‘olden days’ involved nicely dressed ladies who were lushes.
our neighbor, gene, passed away last night.
the past year has been hard for him, his mind just was not what it used to be and was going even faster the past few months.
this same mind, which happened to be very set when decided to do something, decided it was time to go.
all i can say is this;
whoever moves in or whatever happens to the house next to us, nothing will compare to gene.
he was a good neighbor, a unique neighbor, and above all, he was kind to us.
he was the perfect neighbor with just the right amount of crazy which matched perfectly with our just the right amount of crazy and made for a very exciting almost 8 years.
rest in peace gene, i hope all your questions are finally answered and you see your mother, whom i have never heard anything but absolute love when you talked of her, again. 
