The day the troll came back for a visit

Let me paint you a little picture. Imagine one big brother minding his own business.

Now imagine one little sister poking, teasing, prodding and all around bothering the big brother.

Imagine the big brother taking it. He turns away. He doesn't get upset with the little sister. He asks his sister to pleeeeeease stop bothering him.

She keeps pestering. She is in the mood to tease.

Finally the big brother has had enough. He turned to the little sister and says in a growlly yes it is a word sort of voice, I am getting grumpy. And when I get grumpy I eat little girls.
The little sister laughs at him.

She does look kind of tasty, I think.

Want to hear about the first troll visit. Go read here.

The kids call it fuzzy

I just call it a pretty morning.
Have a great day!

The story about the boy who was messing with something he shouldn't have.

OK, one last reunion story for you. So we are sitting at the big reunion, in the rain, having about as much fun as you can have with a bunch of people you don't know very well but you are related to. Mark, who had been playing with his cousin, comes screaming around the side of the building obviously in a great amount of distress. He plants himself in my lap. His father and I did a quick once over to make sure nothing was broken. Mark's cousin, Cory, helpfully told us he had been stung by a bee. Very helpful in fact because not one coherent word was coming out of Mark's mouth. With much crying, snot and tears we got him to tell us where he had been stung all under the helpful gaze of not less than 20 people. We probed for a stinger and found none. He calmed down and went on to eat my entire plate of lunch. His appetite is never affected by outside circumstances. We finished out the reunion, said our good-byes and went home.
The next morning Mark got up and his ankle and wrist of easily three times their normal size. Like scary big. Long story short we took him to the walk in clinic after the big family picture. So if you happen to see our family picture you now know why Mark looks something like a balloon.
He is better now except for the part where when he sees anything bigger than a gnat he goes into panic mode. Arms swinging over head, yelling, running in any direction as long as it's away from the offensive creature.

Aliens Attack

These tiger lilies always remind me of aliens. Their tentacles reaching down to suck the life from unsuspecting humanoids.
AAHHHHHH! Here comes one now! Run for your lives!

Sorry. I'll go now.



Got a minute? Go read this story about Anna Banana. Here Thanks Weezee. I enjoyed that one.

Revisting childhood.

Let me tell you about a little trip the kids and I took during our vacation. I took them to a place I spent a good portion of my own childhood. It was like stepping back in time a little. We visited my Great Grandmothers cottage on Cayuga Lake. It's in the heart of wine country in upstate NY. A fact that wasn't all the important to my as a child. But now...oh my. They make some really nice wine here. For our honeymoon Jason and I took a day and when wine tasting. What fun. We had no idea what we were doing. Did you know you are supposed to spit the wine back out? Puh. Not us. We took it like shots. Yeah. No idea. But we did buy some wine so I guess the wineries were probably happy.
Anyhoo. I guess it's off on a tangent day. Where were we? Right, Cayuga Lake. So the kids and I took a journey. First you drive and drive and drive. You go through Ithaca. Ever been to Ithaca? I swear the designers of that town were five and had crayons. There are so many one way streets you are bound to get lost. And I did. Good times. But then we pulled out of town on the far side and kept going until we saw this sign. Then we did what any good redneck would do. We pulled off the paved road.
We drove a little further and then we entered the woods. This was always really neat to me at a kid. The woods just close in around you. It doesn't matter how bright the day is, it is always dark in here. I'm sure those lights don't mean anything. They have been on for a long time.

Then everything opens up and we are there. This is one of those views that is forever stuck in my mind. It mean swimmings, hiking, fishing, and fun to me.
It also means seeing this lady. She celebrates her 100th Birthday this year. She is amazing. She still lives by herself and does all of her own cooking and cleaning. She is sharp as a tack and remembers every single person she has ever met.
She loves clowns and had them all over the cottage when we were kids. She has since given the cottage to her daughter and son. They still keep a few clowns around to keep them company while they are there. Mark and Anna got a huge kick out of the clowns.
You go through that gate in the above picture. Then you go down all of these stairs. And you are on the beach. Did I take a decent picture of the beach. *Searches frantically* No, I didn't. Sorry. However I can tell you about those stairs. I went up and down those stairs not less than 298,564 times as a child. They winded me then and they still wind me today. That is a lot of stairs.
They had fun I think.

I most certainly had fun.

Have a great weekend!

I think that look is genetic

He's just trying to help

Let me just start by saying, Wow was that ever a fun vacation. We had a blast. I have so many stories to tell about all the fun times. We went to the mother of all farmer's markets. You know I love my farmers markets. I took the kids someplace I spent much of my own childhood. Can't wait to share that one. We did a great deal of front porch sitting. Love love love front porch sitting. But for today I am just starting slow with a story about my favorite boy child. The kids spent a great deal of time in the car over the last couple of weeks. We live several hours from where the reunion was actually held. We stayed down there some but then came home for a couple of days. Then we went back again. Lots and lots of sitting in the car. And for the most part they were really good. There were a few tense moments when I thought I may have murder one or the other of them. But all in all not too bad. Mark is really good at entertaining his little sister when he wants to. She adores him. He is also really good at driving her crazy. He does that a lot too. That's when we come back to the murder on the side of the interstate part. Anyhoo, this was one of the times when he was being nice. Anna still isn't talking much but Jason and I are really working with her. One of the big things we are working with is please. It's a pretty easy word and one we would really like her to know. We are pushing her to enunciate. We often say the first letter of a word several times to try and get her to repeat it. (boring background info but necessary to the story)Telling people what to do. This is so a torch Mark will pick up and run with. Sooo here we are driving through one the many quaint little towns between here and there. Mark spies something ahead. He turns to his sister and says, Look, Anna, pa pa pa am-buuuul-lance.

Maybe you had to be there. But it was so funny I almost fell out of my seat. I love the kid for trying to help but if he keeps this up she will never learn to talk, ever. People will just think she's losing air.