ALL TOGETHER NOW!

My knight in shining armor ended up being a neighbor in a white teeshirt.  He had borrowed Zack for an errand yesterday and heard that Gabe was stranded on the eastern border of the state (he wasn't really stranded, he was with friends, but he wanted to come home, and they weren't planning on coming in to the Springs until later in the week... he just didn't want to wait.  What can I say, he has his mother's patience!  )  So our neighbor came over with some $ and told me to go get my son.  (Thanks Jim!).

I filled up Big Red, drove east with the two girls to Burlington and brought my boy home.  Dickidoo didn't get my messages until after 5pm, when we were almost there.  He had been clearing the ranges of any unexploded munitions and had to keep his cell phones off for safety reasons.  'Bombs and cell phones don't mix well', he told Rocky when she scolded him for not having his phones on.  Well, he's definitely got a valid point there!

Its nice to have the family all together again.  We will have 'Christmas in July' this year.  Gabe has been away for the last two Christmases and will be in Iraq for the next two, so he wants to have Christmas with the family before he leaves.  Sounds like fun to me.  And guess what... his potty mouth isn't so potty any more!  He slips up every once in a while, but he is making an honest effort to watch his cussing around the family.  Rocky is the only one whoseems disappointed... the last time he was here she had racked up over $40 in fines from him the first night for the 'Cuss 'n Fuss' fund.  Its been almost a whole day now and I doubt she's collected but maybe a couple of bucks so far.

My Christmas in July present (given to me in June) from Dickidoo... grass!  No, not smoking grass, green grass.  Real live grass!  Actually it was like 23 rolls of sod.  Knowing my curse with growing things, I have been forbidden to walk on the lush sod that now carpets the once bare patch of dirt in front of the front den windows and the porch.  My zero-scaping strategy is still in effect for the rest of the yard.  But oh my, just having the sod in the yard has lowered the temperature in Colorado by at least 5 degrees!

I slept until 10am this morning.  Its amazing how well one sleeps when all of one's children are home.  

Grrrrrrrrrr!

Gabe called from Burlington, Colorado.  He thought he had a ride all the way in to the Springs but things didn't work out as planned.  Unfortunately although I only had a half day of work today, I don't have enough gas nor money to drive the 150 miles to Burlington to pick him up and bring him home for a little r&r.

Enter Sir Steve, my hero and knight in shining armor... he with all the riches of the kingdom.   He who carries two cell phones so his loyal subjects can call him in their time of need.  He who carries two cell phones but keeps neither of them on so that callers have two opportunities not  to be able to get in touch with him.

AGH!

And poor Gabe is stuck in some trailer park 150 miles from home and no way to get here.

My frustration knows no boundaries.

RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL SLIDE SHOW

OOMPAS GO TO THE FAIRE

Zachary demonstrates that there is no future for him as a pirate.  He humored me this time, but his next trip to the faire will be as a Squire.

Art, on the other hand, has no visions of grandeur.  He is now and always will be a rogue pirate.  And look, he's got a jar of dirt!

Last year I posted a musical slide show of pictures I had taken at the Faire.  Somehow the video made its way to the Colo. Ren. Fest. online forum where I was introduced to some of the wonderful cast and crew of the Faire, including the lovely and talented Mistress Charlotte, a face painter/ artist extraordinaire!  Rachel, dressed up as a proper Lady, walked away looking and feeling like a princess.

Rebecca, showing off some of Mistress Charlotte's work, was also a lady for the day.  People kept remarking on her beauty.  Oh, if only they knew!

Nope, we couldn't talk Dickidoo into dressing up.  But that didn't keep him from participating at the faire.   Here he is getting the snot knocked out by a co-worker during the public square pillow fight.

But fear not, Dickidoo made a miraculous recovery and saved the land from the evil young tyrant!

Tags: Colorado Renaissance Festival

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

 There were a few times back in February when my brother, sisters and I sat together in the beach cabin and reminisced about our childhood.  I think the number one thing that most of us recalled was the scent of his after shave.  Old Spice.  I love it to this day.  Little indiscretions were always blamed on an imaginary dog named 'Snippy' who lived under the table.  He was our hero because he would volunteer to eat the artichoke hearts so we wouldn't run the risk of choking on the deadly hairs.  I didn't eat my first artichoke heart until I was married, and when I learned how easy it was to peel the choke off of the heart I realized the genius of my father... all those years eating all those artichoke hearts...  The Oompas, by the way, have never fallen for that scam, dang it!  Happy Father's Day Daddy!

And Happy Father's Day to Steve, the father of my children.  (Hey, they're 50% your fault too Dickidoo, don't you forget it!)

An extra special Happy Father's Day to Gabe, the father of my grandbaby (plus one more on the way, YAY!)

BECCA TO THE RESCUE

I have a confession to make.  I didn't actually add peanut butter to my instant coffee.  I wasn't that desperate.  In fact I didn't even make a cup of instant coffee.  Becca decided that she wasn't going to use the blouse I bought for her the other day so I returned it and got enough money back to buy some Folgers AND hazelnut creamer!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  All better!  (thanks Becca Bee)

Gabe called last night bearing bad news.  Apparently his fiancee's mother's health is not the greatest so Kim will stay with her mother to help her out instead of moving out here while Gabe is in Iraq.  To say that I am disappointed is an understatement, but I understand Kim's position.  Hopefully her mother's health will improve.  At any rate, maybe I will be able to get out that way to visit after the baby is born.  And then I'll be able to see Little Zachary as well.  Yay! 

Its 6pm and I haven't even begun to cook supper.  It was supposed to be clam fettuccini but at this point its beginning to look more and more like a hot dog kind of night.  And beer.  Yeah, hot dogs and an ice cold Corona.  Now that's "whats for dinner!" 

Hmmmm, I wonder if there's any place in town that delivers hot dogs and ice cold Coronas.

Finally, my day off!  Dickidoo is at work, the Oompas are all still in bed.  The house is silent.  Lovely!

I have been digging through piles and piles of laundry for the past couple of days.  We will be going to the Renaissance Festival this weekend (HUZZAH!) and I need to take inventory of what we have and what I still need to acquire.  The boys are easy, they'll just grab what ever they wore last year and they're good to go so long as I braid their hair.  The girls on the other hand are both physically and mentally incapable of wearing the same outfit two years in a row.  (Shame on me for even suggesting it)  This year Rocky wants to be a dragon something (?)  Her outfit MUST be purple, it MUST have a corset of some sort which MUST be pointy in the front, and she MUST have wings and horns.  Yeah, okay, no problem.  I'm sure Walmart has something like that in the Jr. Missy summer wardrobe collection.  (NOT!)  Becca will be easier to outfit I think.  She just wants to be a gypsy dressed in black.  We already have the skirt so we only need to come up with a blouse and all the trimmings.  Oh, and of course she MUST have a corset.

Dickidoo, who is usually pretty game about these kinds of things, refuses to let me dress him up.  I offered to sew him a pirate's shirt but he's as obstinate as I am lazy, so he gets to wear a  tee shirt and I have one less sewing project to worry about.  Me... I'm going as a medieval hippie!  I know, hippies didn't come around until centuries later, but the dress is perfect, except for the hippy paisley bandana print.   I know what it needs to make it more Renaissancy, a corset!

We'll be taking some friends along with us.  This will be their first time at the Faire.  They have two small boys and a little girl.  I get to help outfit them.  What fun, I'm so excited.  Its almost like when the Southern Oompas were here.  (Awwww, I miss my little Southern Oompas!)

I've heard from Gabe again.  We're looking at maybe late July for a visit (with family in tow?)  His fiancee is due in late September.  Hopefully she will be here in Colorado and settled down in an apartment by then.  They still haven't decided upon a name yet.  She has turned down all of Gabe's suggestions so far and has threatened to name the baby 'Riot' if he doesn't come up with a good one before the baby is born.  I wasn't too sure about 'Riot' as a name, but you know what, the more I say it, the more I like it.

A letter came in the mail the other day from the high school.  They are holding Art's report card hostage until we pay $350 for the marching band uniform he allegedly never returned.  First of all, I saw him roll the uniform up, still on the hangers and in the dry cleaner's bag, and stuff it in his back pack on the last day of school so I know he returned it.  And secondly, I already know what his grades are (its pretty bad!) so they can keep the dang report card for all I care, I DON'T WANT IT!

I ran out of coffee grounds yesterday, as well as hazelnut creamer.  I have 52 cents in my debit account.  (maybe I went a little shop-happy in preparation for the Faire... maybe just a little bitty bit).  I could ask Dickidoo for a loan, but he's a little bit (HUGE) ticked off at me because I disagreed with him (gasp!) about something last night.  I can only imagine how long my rap sheet must be by now, probably MILES long.  Oh well, I guess I'll dust off the jar of instant coffee.  Hmmm, I wonder how peanut butter tastes in coffee?

STILL HERE...

Sorry folks, didn't mean to worry anyone.  I've just been under the weather these past two weeks.  I'm still congested in the chest but feel much better.  I probably would have been able to kick this bug sooner but I wasn't able to take any sick days due to scheduling so it was business as usual and I would be totally exhausted by the time I got home.  Today is my second day off in a row.  For the most part I have just been resting in the den.  It has paid off and I am feeling almost back to normal... except for that loogie that is resting just outside of hacking range, grrrr!

Summer is in full swing.  The Halls of Loompa are strangely quiet as most of the Oompas have migrated to the homes of others who still welcome them.  Its just a matter of time before all of the Oompas and their friends return here and start hanging out in their own domain as their welcome is worn out else where.  I don't mind.  I'm used to a million kids calling me 'mom'.  I just wish the Oompas would befriend a neat-freak who would adopt me and clean my house.

Did I mention that one of my photos was finally published?  Okay, so it was only a high school year book senior picture that one of my self-adopted son's asked me to take, but it came out really nice and looked just as professional as any of the other pictures.  And yesterday I got an email from a birding journal asking to use one of the pictures I took of the red tail hawk and the bull snake for a future issue.  How cool is that!  I'm so excited!

Gabe's deployment has been pushed back, which is good in a way, but it means he will have to extend his enlistment which he was hoping not to have to do.  I'm still hoping to get his fiance and her kids out here before then.  My second grandbaby is due in September.  What an awesome birthday present that would be to be able to hold my new grandbaby on my birthday (September 13, hint hint!)  Better yet... BOTH grandbabies!  Come on over and play Zachary!