Strange and Unusual Things in the Garden

I haven’t been out to the garden very much lately because it has been so hot. I did finally venture out there and was quite surprised by my findings. I have yellow squash and yellow watermelons growing side by side, which I guess is a big no no. I have a watermelon growing on our squash vine. I’ve named it the squashmelon, original I know. I wonder what it’s going to be like on the inside. I couldn’t imagine having a squash that big, hopefully it’s just a watermelon growing on the wrong vine. Then I was watering a few of the corn plants then I started picking some tomatoes and I spotted this horrible looking creature. If you know me you know I’m quite fond of bugs, but this one was so nasty. It was a huge tomato horn worm. I knew I had to pick it off so I just reached in and tried to pull it off. This sucker was holding on for dear life, it was actually starting to pull up my tomato plant. I then started at one end and started pulling it off two sucker feet at a time. He didn’t like that very much; he started squirting green fluid at me. I don’t even want to know what the green fluid was. When I was close to getting him all the way off the plant he started swinging his back end around, the one with the horn. I don’t know if the horn is soft or hard and I didn’t want to find out, so I let go of him. Then I had to start all over again. It was a very nasty process but I finally got him off. I put him in one of the many cups Lana has outside to make mud pies in. He was contained for the moment then I started to think. Why did I just go through that? The tomato plants have leaf spot (a fungus) and try as I might I couldn’t get rid of it so I was going to pull up the plants anyway, plus it’s not like they are our favorite vegetable. I was going to have to leave the tomato plants in the ground a few more days just because of what I just went through for them. Lana was outside watching all the action so we the excitement was over and the worm was in a safe place she ran inside to get Kyle and show him then of course then they ask, can we keep him? Knowing how my kids take care of our fish I knew he wouldn’t be around long so I said sure, but we need to find a container for him before he goes into the house. We decided on a water bottle that had a sport top so he could get some air. A few days went by and the worm was not looking so good so Lana decided to shake it. The thing was dead, I felt bad for it even though it did spray me with the green slime, but not bad enough to give it a proper burial and into the trash can it went water bottle and all. A few days went by and I went out to the garden again to pull up the tomato plants. I got the shovel and started to dig them out and then it looked like the ground was moving. I put my shovel down and took a closer look. It was thousand of little black ants. I thought I had dug up their nest, but then I got to the next plant and the same thing happened. I think my 4 ft by 4 ft garden is their whole ant bed. I got the plants out and then got the ant granules, so much for organic gardening. I went inside and had the creepy crawlies for quite a while after, you know where you feel like something is crawling on you but it’s not. I am getting tired of this gardening thing now, but maybe I’ll still try for my fall garden I think there will be fewer bugs.

The Last Day of School

Well Kyle’s last day of school was on Friday and he only had a half day. We started off the day with donuts. Which was a half celebration and a half bribe kind of thing. Kyle had an honors assembly that day where he gets awards for AB honor roll and stuff like that. The note he brought home said he was only getting the AB honor roll award. Ronnie and I hate these honor assemblies because they last for 2 hours and they just hand out awards to almost everyone. They try to give everyone an award instead of just handing out awards to those that really did something special. I’ve never really liked this practice of making everyone feel like a winner, it makes the ones that really tried to go above and beyond feel like why did I even bother and then the ones that did nothing feel like they are entitled to get awarded for doing nothing. I would have to imagine that the school would see higher grades if they stopped giving out awards for complacent behavior and started making the kids that work hard feel really special. I’ll get off my soapbox now and finish the story. We told Kyle he got to go pick out donuts because it was the last day of school and because we were so proud of him for making all A’s and B’s all year, but we didn’t think we were going to be at the assembly. He was fine with that and said he understood how hard it is trying to keep Lana happy for 2 hours while sitting and being quite. We sent Kyle off to school and I actually didn’t feel guilty. We picked Kyle up and asked to see his awards, he received: Perfect Attendance, Exemplary Attendance, and a Certificate for Outstanding Academic Achievement from the President. I guess the President’s Award takes place of the AB honor roll. We are very proud of Kyle and all his achievements. We decided that when we picked him up we should take him out to lunch somewhere of his choice. We let him pick four places he would like to go and then we picked from there. We ended up going to Qdoba where both kids eat like it’s going out of style. Then it was time for Lana to take a nap so we went home. The whole day I had been thinking….isn’t this a great time to get a Wii. It would be something new for Kyle to play with while he was out of school and if we get one now instead of waiting for his birthday or Christmas then it wouldn’t be his. We wouldn’t have any issues of him thinking, it’s mine I get to play now and the other things that come along with ownership like, since it’s mine can I keep it in my room. We put Lana down for a nap and Kyle is off playing with legos in his room and I look at Ronnie and say I want a Wii. He just laughs and says they look pretty cool don’t they. He wasn’t getting it so then I say I want a Wii now like today (like the spoiled person I am). He laughs at me again and then I explain my reasoning for wanting it today and also let him in on some of the ways I had been able to save some money recently. It didn’t take much for him to get on board then we are looking up who has them in stock. No one in Las Vegas had them, but in our many calls we did find out that the Sam’s Club in Bullhead City had 15 of them. Ronnie said it was about an hour away so I said well let’s do it then. Of course we waited until Lana woke up from her nap and then we started out. Kyle reminded us that is was Friday the 13th while we were in the car. Then the next thing you know Ronnie was getting pulled over on the 215 for speeding….lol. He got a ticket for going 70 in a 65 mph zone. So we make it to Bullhead very cautious of our speed in an hour and a half and it took the same amount of time to get back home. You could say it took us a wee bit longer than expected to pick up a Wii. We let the kids stay up until 10:30 playing then Ronnie and I played until midnight. It’s a really fun little toy that gets the whole family involved. We know what the family home evening game will be for like the next year………Wii tennis!

A Little Off the Top

Why is it that every child feels the need to cut their own hair at some point in their lives? Its funny how they have no fear of cutting their own hair but when we try to cut their fingernails or toenails it’s the end of the world. Well it was nap time and I had read Lana a story and made sure she had socks on (she cannot sleep with bare feet) and left her alone to take her nap like I always do. She usually spends some time playing with stuffed animals and then falls asleep. I went to check on her and she was putting hair bows on one of her care bears. I could see that the bows were too much fun and she would never fall asleep as long as she had them to play with, so I asked her for the bows so I could put them away. She gave up the bows without a fight and the next time I checked on her she was asleep. All was good until she woke up a few hours later. Her hair is always a mess when she wakes up so I didn’t notice it at first but soon enough I saw it. She had cut her bangs. She actually did a pretty good job, better than some of my attempts at cutting her hair. I then had to ask her why she did it. She said her bangs where too long and kept getting in her eyes when she was sleeping. Her reasoning made perfect sense, but I still had to talk with her about not cutting things and now we keep the scissors on lock down. I know it could have been much worse, I have seen those haircuts. I got very lucky this time; I just hope there isn’t a next time.
Kyle was much older when he gave himself a haircut. What was he thinking?

Over the Hump to Pahrump

Yes, it’s that time of year again where your kids stay up way past their bedtime, your dogs hide and whimper all night, and you eat so many hotdogs that you think you might be the next firework to explode. The 4th of July, a totally American holiday at it’s finest. On this day in 1776 a group of guys got together and passed the Declaration of Independence through Congress. On September 17, 1787 however, our Constitution as we know it is established. So why is it that we celebrate the birth of our Country on July 4th? Do our parents celebrate our birth on the day they thought about having us or when we were actually born? Anyway, just something my husband got me thinking about. I think July 4th has a much better ring to it than September 17. Yesterday we started our 4th of July celebration a little early by going to a friend’s pool and swimming for about 3 or 4 hours. Then after the kids were very worn out I get the bright idea to go get some fireworks. I find great joy in fireworks somewhere in between seeing our hard earned money going up in smoke and the look of wonderment in our kid’s eyes. Since I can remember we always had quite the bash on the 4th, whether it was at my grandparent’s lake house or on our farm in Texas. My brother’s birthday is the 3rd of July so we usually had at least two days of excitement. My grandfather would often give us some money to go to the firework stand and let us pick out our own fireworks. I always picked out the colorful ones and Jason would get the loud and annoying ones. This year was no different, I still like the cutesy ones however, instead of the little firework stand I wanted to go to the giant firework stores in Pahrump. I’m a big fan of the classics and a bigger fan of buying in bulk; you should see our supply of toilet paper. I wasn’t going to Pahrump to buy the ever popular illegal fireworks but rather a boat load of cute ones. So at about 9:30 at night (an hour and a half past the kid’s bedtime) we start pilling tanks, lanterns, snakes, jumping jacks, pagodas, smoke bombs, hen laying eggs, magic dragons, ground blooms, and of course colored sparklers into our cart. Then as we are checking out the lady at the counter says you may want to go the longer way back to Las Vegas because the police are pulling over everyone and taking their fireworks on the main road. My reply was that we don’t have anything to worry about because we didn’t buy anything illegal; everything had the safe and sane stamp on it. She then says they are taking those too. We still buy our fireworks and then search for a gas station. Ronnie drove out there and I was driving back because the poor guy had been up since 3:00am and was very tired. So as he is pumping gas I start thinking. Can the police pull me over even if I’m not speeding or doing anything wrong, I mean I know they can set up a check point and pull everyone over, but can they just decided to stop you for the heck of it? Is it illegal to buy fireworks in Pahrump and take them to Las Vegas? I didn’t think it was illegal unless you bought illegal ones (the ones that go higher than 3 feet in the air, yadda yadda yadda), but maybe I’m wrong. The whole time I’m asking these questions Ronnie is just sitting there laughing at me. I did not think anything was humorous since I still have my Colorado driver license. I know I’m so bad, but the DMV is just such a horrid place I can’t bring myself to go there and get my license switched over. I have been there a couple times 4 years ago after moving back to Las Vegas and did try to get my license switched over but I each time I went I had to have different paper work. Now I think they want every report card from kindergarten on. Anyway, my Colorado license doesn’t expire until 2011, so maybe then I’ll consider going back to the DMV, or maybe we’ll just move back to Colorado…lol. I was just glad we had a car with cruise control so I could make sure I wasn’t speeding. I actually drove all the way with both hands on the wheel! We did pass a few people that were being pulled over but we made it without a hitch. It was 11:30 when we made it back to Vegas and our kids were still awake. I’ve heard stories of kids falling asleep in mid sentence or while watching TV but I have never seen that happen to my kids. Never have they fallen asleep without Ronnie or me telling them to. We were 5 minutes away from home and I look back at Lana while at a stoplight and got to see her nod off to sleep. Ronnie then saw Kyle fall asleep and then we pulled in the driveway. However short their slumber was it still happened. Our kids actually fell asleep on their own without any promptings from anyone. It does happen, it’s not just a myth. However, Lana was awake enough by the time she made it to her room to request which pajamas she wanted and she was not going back to sleep until there was a bedtime story. Kyle was happy there was no shower and jump in bed without night hugs on the other hand. They both still managed to wake up at 6:30 this morning…kids…amazing little creatures aren’t they? Here are some photos from the next day.
BEFORE

AFTER

Kyle with his favorite shirt...it says Future President.