Queue Ode To Joy

OK, I haven't blogged in a loooong time. But I have something truly blog-worthy.

3 weeks ago Riley & Olivia were goofing around in the kitchen. I had been unloading the dishwasher and got a phone call so I left it open and went in the other room. Riley was running backward and tripped over the open door and fell right smack on top of it. Oh joy. After looking it over and doing a test-run we discovered that the door was bent and it now leaked. Again, I say, oh joy.

After much debate and many phone calls we determined that it made more sense to replace it than fix it. It never was a very good dishwasher so we had the circuitous debate.. spend a few hundred to fix a crappy machine, or put that money toward a better one. Fish? or cut bait? Dad helped the decision along since he called one too many times and got the response, "I'm washing the dishes" when asked what I was doing. So, Merry Christmas! We got our new dishwasher today and I'm running the first load right now. It's SO quiet!

I've been humming the Ode To Joy for the last hour. After 3 weeks of washing dishes by hand in scalding hot water, (yes, I know I should have bought gloves but it just seemed like such a woosie thing to do) and 2 cut fingers by grazing knives in the scalding depths, and dry cracked hands and peeling fingernails.... I am truly in a joyous mood.

I can't wait to make chili and put the bowls straight in without washing them out first just to put it to the test.

Ye olde crappy, wash-the-dishes-before-you-wash-the-dishes machine.

The new fabulous, quiet machine. Not quite fully installed, still has the protective plastic on the front and no handle. But even at this stage it was splendiferous!

Ahh... 4th grade...

Sammi is in the 4th grade, you know what that means... time for the unit on Utah Native Americans. She had to pick a type of Indian dwelling and make it. She picked an Earth House, which of course was one of the hardest ones to find pictures of on Google.

We helped her plan it out and gave her suggestions & instructions from time to time. We also cut the sticks for her and manned the hot glue gun for her, but other than that she did the whole thing herself. My favorite part is the little ladder. She glued it together and then tied grass around the joints.

She should get an A... as long as the teacher believes she did it herself. Kind of sad when you wonder if you should have to do something crappy looking just to make sure it looks "kid made". hehe.

Millions of peaches.. peaches for me...

Well I just finished bottling all my peaches today. I kind of spread it out over the last 4 days, which worked out pretty well for me. So now I've got 49 quarts of yummy peaches. They're so pretty I don't know if I'll let anyone eat them!

Thanks to Catherine who didn't get irritated (or at least didn't show it) when I called her for my yearly bottling questions. "ummm... I forgot how much sugar. And how many vitamin C was that again?" I actually did write all that stuff down last year... but let's just say my organizational skills need work since I couldn't figure out WHERE I'd written it down.

Ok, peaches down. Next up... Applesauce!

Visitors

Last week we got to visit with my nephew, his wife and their cute little boy. The nephew has been in town on some sort of medical rotation at the hospital here and they came by a few times to use the computer. I had a good time chatting with them and the kids really loved cute little E, who by the way speaks Russian. Little smarty-pants. He kept saying something and I couldn't figure it out so I asked his dad, who replied, "Oh, that's Russian for *blah*". Sorry I couldn't actually remember the word. hehe.

Wow. My kid looks like a shrimp next to him. I know part of it is the fact that he's a little closer to the camera... but... these two are actually 2 years apart in age... and size-wise... I'm not seeing it in this picture. ha ha.

Speaking of my shrimpy family... I had to go to the Jr. High to talk to Riley's teacher today and I got there just as school was getting out. BIG MISTAKE! I was practically run over about 10 times and most of the 8th & 9th graders were TALLER than me! It felt like a huge surge of sweaty kids fighting to get out, and since I was coming in... too bad for me.

1st Day of School

Yesterday was Sammi's first day of school, and was technically Riley's too. Riley actually had a half day on Tuesday that was just for 7th graders so they could get a feel for the whole locker & 5 classes thing.

As I tried to get Riley to let me take her picture... she refused. So as she was headed out to her carpool I called her name and snapped this one really quick when she turned around. haha!

Sammi had no problem posing for me, and I'm just guessing that Olivia will be more than happy to pose her little heart out today when I take her to preschool.

It's several hours later and I was correct. Olivia gave me quite a variety of poses, some hands on hips, some with one hand in the pocket, you know... all your basic super-model poses.

Hair Cuts

The girls got haircuts on Saturday as part of the whole "getting ready for school" ritual. I think they look pretty cute!

Kamikaze Dragonflies...

We've had a couple of big wind storms this summer, and both times the girls found something strange in the netting of our trampoline. This time I had the presence of mind to take pictures.

Apparently in high winds, dragonflies become shooting missiles and impale themselves into things, such as trampoline netting. The first dragonfly they found was a pretty bright green. They get stuck becuase they manage to get their heads and front legs through, but the wings obviously won't co-operate.

This time around the dragonfly was brown and green. We've now figured out the best extraction process... take a trowel and push on it's nose to push it backwards through the netting. And.. zippp... they fly off.

Click the pictures to enlarge... they're pretty cool.