Weekend Getaway...

A few weeks ago we were soooo lucky to get away for a few days with NO kids!  We had a ton of FUN!  We went with our friends, Joe and Hallie...we took the ferry, and went to Salt Spring Island.  It was so nice there.  The weather was perfect!

This was a neat little patio we had outside our room...had a fireplace and was so cozy sitting here drinking our coffee first thing in the morning.

View from the room...

First thing Saturday morning, we headed over to the farmers market that they put on.  Lots of neat little trinkets and homemade things.  We ate kale, and nettle...dried.  It was good...different though.  Here was some bread and it smelled soooo yummy!

Now, let me say...this place reminded me of Bisbee, Arizona a bit.  A hippie here, and a hippie there...but this guy...he REALLY reminded me of my Bisbee days!  Come on...you can't argue it, can you?!

He told me he was very famous.  As famous as Michael Buble, and Nellie Furtado.  I asked him "How is that?!"  He said, "Have you ever heard of YouTube?  I have millions of hits on YouTube!"  Really now?!  I think I might head over to YouTube and see how famous this guy is!  I think my Joey's 40,000 hits on his milking a cow video is by far more famous! :)

Anyways, this guy said he had the 8th wonder of the world!  This little wooden contraption...he would spin it through the air and the sun would reflect and give you a kalidascope feeling...Our friend Joe is NOT so sure Hallie should be letting this guy show her his 8th Wonder Of The World!

Ah HA!  Lookie There!  Joey Jacobs has let Mr. YouTube perform his magic on him!!  I think since being home Joe has subscribed to his YouTube page...I'm just sayin'...

Hallie and I enjoying the day...

This was The TreeHouse Restaurant...had a tree trunk growing

right in the middle of the restaurant.

I told my WONDERFUL friends that I wanted to look for seashells.  So, we asked some WONDERFUL local boys, how far it was to SeaShell Beach...thier reply, "Only 15 minutes up that trail."  Ya...right!  That trail took us right up a mountain!  Unlike my Olympian friends...I am NOT in shape to climb a MOUNTAIN!  Who was I kidding?!  They kept climbing that mountain, and I kept begging, "Please, lets go back!  Take me to Sea Shell Beach!!" 

I think it was at this point I started wondering if they were secretly plotting to kill me...I was sweating, panting, begging for a break.  There were cliffs to the right...steep mountain side to the left...I am pretty sure I heard my friends ask Tony if he had a good life insurance policy.  MURDER FOR SURE!  Or maybe they were thinking I was going to have a heart attack right there on that mountain. 

What?!  Is this it?!  I don't see any seashells!!  Look at Hallie, "See Jimi!  It wasn't so bad!!  Look it is BEAUTIFUL!!"  Ya...whatever.  You soak in the beauty while I look for my inhaler.

Ok...maybe it was pretty.  And maybe I was happy I climbed that mountain.  Hey, maybe I will even pose for a picture!

Look!  I really did survive!!  But, it wasn't long after I took this picture that I realized, we climbed UP the mountain, then DOWN to the water...that meant I would have to climb back UP the mountain to get back DOWN to our car!  Some people would call them friends...I am starting to wonder!

Once I got over the shock of the climb...I started to marvel at the beauty around me...look at this cool old house.  The back side was built into the hill.  See the little square just below the peak of the house?  It had the date "1901" on it...I so would love to know the history behind that house!

We did venture over to the other side of the island to look for seashells, (I think my friends and husband got tired of my moaning and complaining about wanting to find seashells...) but we didn't find much.

Just crabs.

One starfish.

One seal...

6 deer.

We are now on our way home...this is the passage out.  Beautiful, isn't it?!

Here is Joe and Hallie after their relaxing weekend away with no kids...

Awww...they LUB each other!!

Tony and I after a long, relaxing weekend away...We LUB each other too, but no kissing pictures for us!  We still need to talk about that life insurance conversation...

It really was a GREAT weekend.  I really don't think any of us were ready to go home.  We laughed, and laughed, and laughed...

You know...everyone needs weekends like that!

Thanks Joe and Hallie for a GREAT weekend!

Thanks Mom and Dad for taking care of our 4 kiddo's so we could do this!

We have planned a repeat...can you watch the kids?! :)

N...is for...NEVER put too much bubble bath into a jet tub!

So, I am full of some GREAT advice today. Listen to my words very closely. Take this as a very valuable lesson. When going away for a fabulous weekend with your hubby and friends...DO take the room with the cool jet tub in the corner of the room. Look forward to enjoying the lovely homemade soaps and bath bombs that the nice hotel people leave on the side of the tub. Do talk all day about how much you will enjoy that bath later, while sipping a glass of wine and watching late night re-runs of I Love Lucy. Do all of that...

But NEVER...I repeat, NEVER...put in that tiny little extra squirt of bubble bath thinking that tub is sooo big that you will need extra bubbles to cover your not so tiny, adult sized body.

And whatever you do...NEVER turn on the the jets when you have that teensy, weensy, tiny too much squirt of extra bubbles in that jet tub. Trust me...this turns into an automatic bubble making machine! One that you will frantically beat with the first towel you can find, in hopes of breaking down the rapidly building wall of bubbles. When that doesn't work, you will blow and push the bubbles to the back of the wall, hoping they won't cascade onto the floor. Especially when you do not know how to shut the jets off. You might have to call your friends from next door for help. And when they don't come, thinking you are playing another joke on them, then you might have to go to the funny hotel lady and ask for help.
Then when you come back into the room, with the funny hotel lady who is laughing at your unbelievable story about a bubble explosion...you might find your loyal, helpful friend sitting on your bed laughing while taking pictures of your little teensy, weensy, tiny squirt of bubbles in your jet tub.

By this time, your friendly hotel lady will shut the jets off, with the ease of one finger, gently pushing on the jet button. All friends and friendly hotel lady will laugh at your expense. Your husband will worry that after all the embarrasment, you will be mad at him, for he is the one who turned on the jets for you so you could relax with that glass of wine while watching late night re-runs of I Love Lucy. Soon you will realize that your nervous system is starting to relax, and the sweat on your body is starting to dry.
What else can you do...but shamelessly get into that volcanic wall of bubbles?!
Unfortunaltely, you will soon realize that in your frantic effort to stop the bubbles you turned the water off, and there is only about 4 inches of water in your bath. For fear of igniting another explosion of bubbles...you will turn on the tap VERY slowly, and realize that you cannot enjoy a hot bath of only bubbles. One needs water to relax. But, it takes a LONG time to get rid of that many bubbles.

So, you will very quickly get out of your bath. Go to bed and hope for a better bath tomorrow.
Lesson learned...NEVER turn on the jets after putting in just a teensy, weensy, tiny extra amount of bubble bath into that great big tub.


With that, this is alphe-bet thursday...head on over to Jenny's place and see who else is having fun with N words today. http://www.jennymatlock.blogspot.com/

Pioneer Woman's Book Signing...

Old friends and a good book...does it get any better?!  Why, yes...yes it does!  For those of you who haven't ventured on to Ree Drummand/AKA Pioneer Woman...you have to go to her blog. 
NOW. 
OK...maybe not now, because you are here.  On MY blog.  You know...the one that gets like 7 hits a week.  While hers has had millions.  She won't mind if you go AFTER reading my blog!  When you have time...this is where you go:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/
Pioneer Woman describes herself like this:
I’m a ranch wife, mother of four, moderately-agoraphobic (self-diagnosed) middle child who grew up on the seventh fairway of a golf course in a corporate town. I attended college in Los Angeles and wore black pumps to work every day. I ate sushi and treated myself to pedicures on a semi-regular basis. I even kissed James Garner in an elevator once. Then, on a brief trip to my hometown, I met and fell in love with a rugged cattle rancher. Now I live in the middle of nowhere on a working cattle ranch. My days are spent wrangling children, chipping dried manure from boots, washing jeans, and frying calf nuts. I have no idea how I got here…but you know what? I love it. Don’t tell anyone.

Well, I got a call from Ree the other day telling me she was coming to the Great Northwest...
OK...maybe not.  But I did read on her blog that she was coming to the Great Northwest, for a book signing of her new cookbook. 

I quickly got ahold of my fellow Pioneer Woman blog stalking friend, Charity.  I used to work with Charity...I have so many stories I could tell you about my wonderful friend....but I will save those for another day.  :)  She won't mind. 
We soon made plans to meet.  Which we were both looking forward to as the last time I saw her, was 4 years ago when she was prego with her first little one. 
I made the venture south...from Canada down to Seattle...where we met up at Charity's place.  We decided to head over to the bookstore where the booksigning would take place.  It was a bit of a drive, so lots of catching up was had.
We were so lucky, as the bookstore did the book siging in an order, by letter.  Lucky us...we were letter A!  (Thanks to Josh for picking up our tickets early!)
While waiting in line, we saw this Pioneer Chicklet:

She was snapping pictures of the hundreds of people that were there, lined up to meet her Mama.  I will tell ya...Mama's baby...is TALL!  And purdy too.  She just smiled and took pictures and I decided I would take one of her. 

Then her Grandma walked by...I wanted to take her picture too...but didn't want to frighten her.  She might be wondering what kind of mess her daughter-in-law has gotten herself into!

Then...after 20 min or so...it was our turn.  She was so nice.  It was over before we knew it...but we got our pictures, and books signed and we were on our way!

Here we are...Me, Ree, and Charity.  Hmmm...kinda rhymes...

Charity jumped out...and I stayed.  Ree was very understanding...:)

As we were leaving, we noticed the little Chicklet again...she was buying a snack.  So we decided to chat with her a bit.  We stole another picture.  I decided to post the one with Charity, because quite frankly, if I posted the one with me...I might scare you. 

 Or her. 

Or both.

Truth is, we had a FABULOUS time.  It is the simple things that make life fun.  Kinda felt like we knew ol' Ree Drummond.  We've shared coffee with her in the morning.  Laughed at her silly stories.  Watched her babies grow, and couldn't believe how grown and mature they were when we did meet.  We've heard her Love Story...(Which you will see too, when they make the MOVIE about her soon!!)  And...we have cooked meals together, via her cookbook and other blog site, of course. 

She was just as kind and as real in person as she is online.

You call it stalking.

I call it blogging.

What a Happy Happy Day.

Thanks so much Charity for going with me!  It was so much fun catching up with you and finding out what we have missed out on over the last few years.  Your a city girl now.  I am a farm girl now.  But we still know how to have a GREAT time!  Hugs to you!

K...is for KIDS say the darndest things...

So, the other night...we had nachos for dinner.  I made them a bit spicey, so I was not surprised when Nicki, (*my 11 year old*), complained that her tummy was hurting.
I told her to go to the bathroom and get me the tums.

She brought them out, and I gave her one and said it should help her feel better.  Soon,  I saw Joe, (*my 9 year old*), eyeing the Tums and Nicki with a very giggly face.
I see him whisper something to Nicki, and it was then I realized what he asked her...

"OMG Nicki!  Why is mom giving you

her pregnancy pills?"

The look of shock and total laughter was soon taking over his face.  I guess the only time he see's me take my Tums is when I have been pregnant...poor boy couldn't figure out why on earth I would be making Nicki take them! 

Totally Cracked Me UP!!

Also...a bit more laughter in the house today.  Of course it had to do with April 1st...what would April 1st be without a good joke or two?!

So, last night, Nicki had a 4-H meeting.  While eating a donut or two, she put her retainer in her jacket pocket.  On the way home, she realized she lost her retainer.  In a state of panic, she starts to cry and Tony turns around and they went back to look for her retainer.  They couldn't find it.
Later in the night, the lady where they had the meeting, called...She Found The Retainer!  Woohoo!
I went to pick it up this morning.
With a little prank in mind, I made my way home.  Whipped up a batch of chocolate, and mixed in some granola bar...and made a nice little cow pie.  I topped it off with...you guessed it...Nicki's retainer!
When she came home from school, I told her they found her retainer.  She was thrilled.  Then I put the bag in front of her, and said, "The only problem is, it was in the manure."  She wasn't too sure until she saw some grass embedded in her retainer.
Hoping that is the last time she loses her retainer! :)

Then, I took out some lovely Chocolate Covered SPONGE that Ryan and I made...Yummy!  Gave one to each of the kids and gave them to the workers outside.
Definately made for another SUCCESSFUL April 1st.


Totally patting myself on the back here!  Mom is GREAT!!!


Because it is Alphebe-Thursday..you should head on over to Jenny's site and see how much fun she is having over there! :)
http://www.jennymatlock.blogspot.com/

Tim McGraw & Lady Antebellum...

For Christmas, Tony got Nicki and I Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum tickets.  We were finally able to RECEIVE our Christmas Gift on March 25, as they were FINALLY here.  We knew we would be in the balcony...but we didn't know we would be SO high up! 

My zoom is good...but not THAT good.  So, in between Lady Antebellum and Tim, Nicki and I decided to go to the lower level to see if we could just get a good picture.  While looking around, one of the employees came up to us and told us we would have to go back to our seats once the show started again.  I told her, "OK...we were just going to take a quick picture for my daughter."  She then asks where we are sitting, we point, and she gave us a GREAT tip!  She said, if we go down to the bottem row, just on the side of the stage, we could sit in those seats as they don't sell those seats because they are slightly obstructed.   We went down there, not sure where to go, and asked another employee.  (Not wanting to get kicked out for being in the wrong spot.)  He directed us to the BEST seats!  Nobody was in front of us, only the sound guys! 

Nicki really liked this idea! 

Funny part of this story is, the day before the concert, the radio was giving away tickets.  You just had to answer a question right.  Would you know...I got it right!  So, I had another set of tickets.  We still liked our seats better, so we gave Rudi and Bekky our extra seats.  Once Nicki and I got to our SPECIAL seats, Bekky texted me, "Where R U?"  Well, I told her exactly where we were and invited her and Rudi to come to our little VIP section.

In the meantime, I was also texting my friend Hallie, and told her to also come to our VIP section.  But, she was a loser and didn't come. :) 

Lord knows what she was missin' out on!!  Well, she had pretty good seats too, so guess she didn't miss out on so much!

Oh my...he was RIGHT THERE! 

(It was at this time, we had Nicki's hat, waving in the air, for him to sign, and he said to Nicki, "In a minute..."  WOOHOO!

Well, he never did come to sign her hat, but that was ok...she still got 3 band members to sign it, and 2 guitar picks that say TIM MCGRAW. :)

I am pretty certain he did this pose for me.

I'm just sayin.

I have been a VERY good mom this year!

As we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, one of the bouncer/security guys comes up to me and says, "Would you like to take your daughter to the stage?"

Uhhhh...YES SIR REE!

And we did just that! 

This is where we spent the remainder of the concert.  With our hat and arms propped up on the stage...COULD IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT?!  We had the best view!

These two guys above, and the one below are the ones who signed NIcki's hat.

This is one crazy fan, her name is NICKI. :)

The smile on her face made the night 100% perfect.

So, now I know the secret seats to sit in...can't wait to try it at the next concert!! :)

J...is for...JIMI.

A normal conversation I have when I meet somebody for the first time goes something like this:


Person A: "Hi, I am Bob. Nice to meet you."
Me: "Hi, I am Jimi. It's nice to meet you."
Bob: "Jimi?"
Me: "Yes, Jimi."
Bob: "What is it short for?"
Me: "Jimi."
Bob: "Were your parents Jimi Hendrix fans?"
Me: "Nope."

I guess it is a good conversation starter, as it normally continues the conversation just fine. I normally tell people that I my parents knew I was going to be a boy...And they were wrong. I am not a boy.


Most people would like to hear the real juicy story, you know, where my mom and dad were from the wild child age...and they LOVED Jimi Hendrex!! And during a wild night...mom said..."I am going to name our son after the great JIMI HENDRIX, man!"

At that point, my dad, kind of in a daze, said, "Whatever...dude...?!"

But, sad to disappoint, that is not the true story.  I was just meant to be a boy.  My parents were not Jimi Hendrix fans.  Nor were they the from the wild child age. 

Once, when I was much younger...I was working as a waitress.  I loved that job.  Although, sometimes I had to deal with some less than appealing people.  One day this guy came in...he was NOT a very nice guy.  He was one of these kind of people:

You know the kind...not exactly the kind of guy you'de be taken home to daddy!

He was saying some VERY rude things to me.  The kind of things that I cannot repeat on my little ol' country road blog.  I was not impressed with him.  But, I continued to serve him his meal, just like I should.  When he got up to pay, I was at the til with my boss.  My boss knew the things he was saying to me, so he understood when what happened next...happened.  Rude Jude says to me, "So, now tell me...how did such a cute thing like you get a name like Jimi?!"  With that I promptly said, "I used to be a boy."  Then I walked away.  His mouth dropped.  My boss said he high tailed it out of there so quick!  I am sure from that point on, he was very careful with who he tried to hit on!

I have known only a few Jimi's in my life.  I am talking, J.I.M.I.  Not, Jimmy, Jimmie, Jimmey, etc.  Just Jimi.  There was a lady from my hometown.  She worked in a restaurant.  Her name was Jimi.  Then a funny thing happened...when we moved to the Northwest, my sister was working with a lady named Jimi.  Her middle name was Lynn.  Would you be surprised if I told you my name is Jimi Lynn.  Yep.  It's true.  As far as I know, there are 2 Jimi Lynns out there!  Pretty unbelievable, if I do say so myself!  I can't even find my name on a coffee cup, much less someone with the same first and middle name.

Have you heard of the group, called Little Big Town? 

This is Little Big Town.  See the guy on the right...good looking guy with brown hair?

His name is Jimi.  Jimi Westbrook.

Do you suppose his parents were Jimi Hendrix fans??!!

Hmmm...I think he and I have alot in common!

I'm Just Sayin'...

By the way, since this is Alphebe-Thursday...you should head on over to http://www.jennymatlock.blogspot.com/ to see how much fun she always has on her blog!! :)

Happy Birthday Nicki!!

Well, our little Nicki seems to be growing up...she turns 11 today! Where on earth has the time gone?! I tell all of my kids to stop growing, but they just don't listen.
 

Today looks like it will be packed full of fun...off to soccer camp IN THE SNOW...then to the pool for a party with Nicki's friends.  When we come home, that is when we will find out if our 11 year old got any birthday presents.

Happy Birthday Nicki...our happy go lucky, caring, loving, sometimes cranky, animal loving, beautiful singing, pretty, always smiling (unless cranky, of course...), awesome big sister, wonderful daughter...

Hope your 11th birthday is your best yet!  Enjoy your day...