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.