Araneus diadematus

This is the spider we found last week. Happy to report it is not poisionus. I check out more pics of his realitives here.

My movie

Ok, to put this in context, this is a "movie script" I came up with from a small group fun night playing Outburst, or some board game.

Old lady orders a pizza. As time passes she looks in the fridge for food and has a flashback to childhodd when her mother would say "you are goung to ruin your appitite" Pizza delivery boy is playing video games at a friends house eating pizza when he gets up to go to work. When he gets to work his boss reminds him he has one more chance if he doesn't deliver this pizza he will loose his job. He needs this job to trade in his Metro for a cool new Jeep. The manager gives him directions to the old lady's house "Left onEastman, Right on Wadsworth, right on Bellview, right on Garland, left on Bellwood, right on Hoyt, left on Saratoga, left on Kipling, left on Chatfield, right on Upham. And it better be warm when it gets there."Along the way there are high school kids pullling a prank switching around street signs. His girlfriend has an emergency he has to take care of. He sees a girl and pulls over telling her he is lost. She takes him inside a building and tells him all about Jesus and how she was lost too. . . he falls asleep listening to her. The next morning the pizza is ice cold, so he is driving around in the summer with the heat on. He starts stripping off clothes and gets pulled over for not using a turn signal, the cop sees he has no clothes on and hauls him in for a drug test. After he is found clean the cops give him directions as he is walking out the boys that were switching the street signs are brought in. Now he has no problem finding the place. Once he finally gets there he is sure he lost his job and will get no tip. She is so hungry and thankful for the pizza shei nvites him in and tells him she'll pay him after she has a piece. They start talking and she tells him the boys that take care of her lawn and walk her dog haven't shown up (the boys that were arrested for switching the signs) Feeling guilty for making her wait so long for her pizza he takes her dog for a walk and then mows her lawn and trims her bushes. She pays him for the pizzas and the other boys' work Sure he has been fired goes home, washes his uniforms. Then returns to work with his uniforms. His manager says "You are so lucky" "I can keep my job?" he asks. "HA! No. But you have a new job if you want it, something about walking a dog and yard work?"

The End

Zoo

Hey, I had a great time with my little sisters this week. They were very well behaved and helped me out with the kids a lot. On Wednesday Janie decided she wanted to go to the zoo. So, we went; we spent about 4 hours there. They kept saying "we don't have those at our zoo," "your animals move, ours just lay there," and "your zoo has better habitats for the animals." So, all in all I think they liked it. I was able to get some really good shots too. One of the elephants was acctually playing with the metal ball the have hanging from a chain. I have never seen them use that before. They had a lot of the monkeys out on the monkey island, that was a lot of fun to see them way up in the trees and playing together. The girls favorite was the polar bears. The male was plaing in the water with a big ball, they really liked that. The female was in another habitat with 2 cubs. She was laying out on the beach and the cubs were wrestling in the water. This grizzly was so fun. When we first got there he was just laying down, but then he got up and went in the water and pulled his head up under this log. This is my favorite shot from the whole day. Then he got out of the water and sat on the log, stratling it like a horse. I have never seen peacock babies so I had to get a shot of these when I saw them out walking with their mother near the lions (good place to walk your children.) I just got a couple shot before they disapeared into the tall grass. The girls were unimpressed with the giraffees as they have so many at their zoo, but I liked this photo.

Katie's favorties were anything that was swimming. When the penguin jumped in the water she said "simin, simin" when we saw the polar bear "simin, momma, simin." It took me a while to get, but I love this picture with Katie's reflection in the glass. And TJ, well, he was unimpressed.

Spider

Check out this awsome picture!! Scott caught this spider the other night in the bushes. We decided to catch it and take pictures of it to figure out what it is. No luck yet. This thing was huge, and the legs were super long. It had 2 creepy spikes on its back too. Anyway, it was super cool, so I thought I would share. I hope you enjoy, and didn't loose your lunch!

3 Days Off

I have 3 days off this week from watching Chase. How nice, a little break. Scott left for New Hampshire this morning on bussiness. He will be back Thursday afternoon. It is not as bad as it sounds though, because my sisters are staying with me. They are good girls. Today we went to the mall, we were going to go to the gym, but it was going to be $8 just to get them in the door. Tomarrow is Janie's day to pick, she hasn't yet, but wants to do something outside where we can all be together. I hope Scott has a safe trip. He hasn't turned on his cell phone yet, so I worry a little. I finally got to see Hitch last night, I really liked it. Kevin James and Wil Smith, what's not to like?

Update- We are headed to the zoo tomarrow!!

This weekend

This weekend starts the adventure that shall forever forth be know as "The Staining of the Deck." Yes folks, after a year of procrastination, we are finally going to finish this monster of a deck. The "Mother-in-law" (grr) is coming to watch the kids (not my idea) while we lather on coat after coat of stain onto our lovely deck. I will be sure to post before and after pics. The sanding shall comence this evening. Another excuse to buy another power tool if you ask me. I have chosen a medium red for the color. I think it is going to look great. I am feeling a little better today. Still coughing, but can't complain.

Mudjacking results

Well, here are the before pictures of the garage floor before the mudjackers came. The corner under the door was a good six inches below where it should have been. As you can see one the right, it was also lower on the left side almost to the front of the garage and the whole back wall needed to come up too. So, they drilled 3 holes in the back and 5 on the side. I don't remember how long it took, no more than 3 hours, including filling in the stoop. Can you believe they did this at nap time and it didn't bother any of the kids?!?! The two guys that came were really nice and polite and did a great job. Anyway, here are the results . . .

I am loving parking in the garage. I can not wait until winter, when I don't have to scrape off ice or getthe kids out in the snow. Even with two feet of snow Katie will still be able to get herself to the car. Heck, by that time maybe TJ will too!

Missing thoughts

I just finished this whole entry about how much I hate baseball and it has now been lost in cyberspace. Grr! So, FYI-I hate baseball. And I hate retyping blog entries, so you just have to pretend to understand how much I hate baseball. And why? I guess we will never know, because my thoughts are floating around lost in cyberspace. :-( Here thoughts, here thoughts, where are you?

To my hubby

To my husband of 7 years, Happy anniversary. I love you very much. Here is to showers that don't work, falling off buses, sewage coming up the kitchen sink, being evicted by a cat, buying a home, graduating from college, having a daughter, and having a son. See? It is only getting better. May the next seven years be "Extreme". With all my love- MB

Birthday to you

As I was sitting here putting up the post about VBS, Katie found a birthday candle and she has been walking around with this candle saying "Birthday to you, Birthday to you" with a left over party hat on from her birthday. It is so cute. Oh, now she has two, a 1 candle and a 2 candle. And now a cat toy, maybe it is the cat's birthday?

VBS 2005

Well, I survived. I had 15 3/4/5 year olds everyday. Mostly boys, very boy boys. There were tough moments, Friday was the hardest. By then they were more comfortale with me and everything I even lost one boy and one left a class to come find me, AH!! Not good. The 3 kids of mine all went (including Chase). They were the bulk of the nursery. I occationally had TJ or Katie, because they were fussing, but most of the time they did really good. By Friday my back was killing me from carring TJ around in the Bjourn. The teenagers kept putting Katie down for a nap, that was VERY annoying. So, it was bible safari so on Friday was lion day so I decided to die my hair red the night before, as you can see the kids out did me with green and blue hair. One of the high school helpers had hers straight up, it looked great.
Everyday we started in art, then went outside, snack, story, game, and ended in music. It was a big day for the little kids. They were always ready to go home. We had about 90 kids in VBS, not including the nursery. It was so nice to get to talk to adults all week and have some place to go everyday. I felt like I was accomplishing something. It was crazy. I can not believe it was a week ago already, things have been so crazy. That is summer for you.

Not in Glendo

Well, the kids and I didn't make it to Glendo, :-( Oh well, there is always next year. Scott went ahead and went up with some friends. Hope they have a good time. If you ask me he should have just stayed here. Oh well, I am beat. Katie didn't go down til nearly 10, TJ got up at 1:00 and 6:00. I think I might go to the museum today, it is not to nice here either. I was wondering why everyone was calling on my cell last night. Turns out I left the phone in the basement off the hook when I was talking to Geoff. I had to switch phones, because I heard TJ up and I never came down to hang it up. Oops. I am tired.

Unsure

Ok, The Weather Channel says high of 58 and low of 40 tomarrow, but the National weather Service says high of 64 low of 49. Once they pick a temp, we might have a decision.

Glendo Prayer

I would like to pray for a miracle and clear skies and 80 degree weather this weekend in WY, but realistically... I need prayer for acceptance that I am unable to go on the trip I have been looking forward to for a year, fun for Scott as he feels obligated to go anyway, and dealing with the jealousy as he goes and I am at home taking care of the kids. Here is the link I have checked 24 times in the last 24 hours: Glendo, WY

My Awsome Friend Heather

I was going to upload a bunch of VBS pics and tell you all about all the craziness last week, but my absolutely wonderful friend Heather is visiting from NJ. She is super wonderful. To the kids she is crazy aunt Heather. She has so many friends here in Denver and she visits her dad in NM or AZ (I always get those 2 confused) I feel so blessed that she always makes time to see us and the kiddos too. She is one of those friends that you can not see for 6 months and still pick up where you left off. Anyway, she called yesterday to say she was in town and she should be here in an hour or too. So, instead of going through all the VBS stuff, I am going to finish packing for Glendo so I can spend the afternoon with her. Yeah!!! I am so excited to get to see her again.

Ren Fest 2005

Yes, it is Ren Fest time again, well, acctually, it is over again. We went the very last day and we only went the one time this year. Good thing there is always next year. We of course saw Puke and Snot and I was very upset to find out that Throw Up wasn't there this year, they were my favorite. We brought our friend Melanie, this is a picture of us enjoying our "Green Dragons" while we were waiting on Scott's moccosians to be fixed. I love taking newbies. I hear that her and her husband are going in costume next year! We did a lot of shopping. I don't even want to tell you how much I spent at Garlic Festival. FYI, you can check out the Garlic Festival link under great links. We took Katie to the petting area, she liked looking at all the animals. We got her a princess hat. You know how much she loves hats! Can't wait til next year.

We love German Shepherds

Apparently, among my elete group of friends, German Shepherd's get the nod. Way to go Diamond! Coming in at a tie for second were St Bernards and Golden Retreivers. Be sure to check out this months poll... Hot Dogs!

Katie's new Elmo Chair

Here is Katie sitting in her new Elmo chair. She now has it in her room next to her book shelf and she sits in it all the time to read her books. Daddy, who is not one for spoiling the kids, saw this when we were at Wal-mart. He just had to get it for his little girl. It was deffinately a good call, because she loves it and she loves Elmo.

Have you missed me?

I relize I have been out of it for a few days. This is VBS week and the kids are all off their schedules and I am BEAT! But, I will be back in action next week. You can look forward to VBS stories, mud jacking results, July pool results, Katie's new chair, and Ren Fest stories. So, I am not gone forever, just taking a little rest.