Forgetful

It has been awhile since I have been to my home State of Washington. You would think that when packing clothing for a trip I would remember that the weather sucks even when the weatherman claims it wont! Now in all fairness it hasn't rained on me yet, but the sun has been hiding behind the clouds for a good portion of the time and it is FREEZING here. It seriously felt like winter yesterday. What was I wearing? Shorts! Luckily I had the good sense to pack a hoodie so I was able to stay a bit warm, but I didn't pack a single pair of pants. It wasn't until after I got here that I remembered the days of wearing shorts with a over sized sweatshirt that is such a common phenomenon here. It is really born out of a necessity to keep warm, but wanting to feel like it is summer...the perfect blend of fantasy and reality. :)

It is also fun to see everyone that is local to the area fit into my Washingtonian stereotype. There is definitely a look that the locals have. There is a difference between city local and country local though which is highly entertaining. You can also tell you are in Seattle by the number of coffee shops you see within a block of each other. People here are passionate about their coffee!

I also looooove seeing all the vegetation that spontaneously grows everywhere. Do you know how much I have to pay for a pint of blackberries in NM and they just grow wild along the freeway and everywhere else there is some dirt here in WA. In fact blackberry bushes are hard to get rid of and grow out of control here! I do miss the days of eating blackberries whenever I wanted because I could just pick them from the side of the road. So, while I did grow up here and there are plenty of things that I miss.....it's a nice place to visit, but not to live. :)

RQ Factor

Recently my little cutie pie has had 2 offers for marriage. This is especially funny because she has been declaring for a long time now that she wasn't getting married or having any kids because she was going to live with Mom and Dad forever. She did have the good sense to want her sisters bigger room and her own TV. We kept telling her that there was no way that was going to happen, but she seemed undeterred. However, on a recent trip with friends to CO she decided that getting married was a good idea, so much so, that there was a wedding ceremony performed under the slide of the yard where we had pitched our tent for 2 weeks.

For the last week that we were there, her and her "husband" (Parker ) were inseparable. Jordyn didn't want to do anything that Parker didn't. She was romanced with flowers everyday and hand holding and there was pet names like "Honey" being used. It started out cute, but then there was a couple of kisses on the lips and we had to have a little chat. Jordy definitely got my genes for liking all things boy. I am pretty certain that we are going to have to lock this girl up when she gets a bit older to keep her out of trouble!

We get back home and her cousin, Noah, comes to visit. All of a sudden she has a quandary. Noah and Parker both want to marry me, what do I do? This was a question that she posed to me while she was sitting on the stairs by the office looking all forlorn while I was on the computer. Well, sweetie. I can solve this problem for you pretty quickly was my reply. Noah is your cousin so you can't marry him! After explaining what exactly that meant we had the situation all cleared up. I found out later that the two had made big plans for their wedding which involved being married on the steps of our travel trailer! This made me laugh so hard because if you are going to marry your first cousin, steps of a trailer should definitely be involved! Apparently our red neck qualities are rubbing off on our children and they are taking it a bit more seriously than intended!!! :)

When you have kids, there is never a dull moment!

Puppy Love

Call me crazy, but we just got another dog. We had been feeling sad for our dog, Champ, because he had no one to play with, so,when the opportunity to have another dog came along...
I wasn't really sure how committed I was to getting a friend for our dog and it was something that we were kind of talking about in some day in the future tense. I was hoping for a smaller more indoor dog that didn't shed all over the place like Champy boy does. The back yard was also barely surviving "dumb dog" as it was and the pool toys, goggles, towels, shoes and anything else left unattended were being destroyed in seconds. So when the Dr Nate hired in Artesia had puppies I kinda closed my eyes, took a deep breath and said "sure, let's do it." The kids couldn't have been more thrilled. We decided to drive down to Roswell to pick up our new little puppy and it ended up being a pretty fun little adventure. It takes about 3 hours to get there and the kids were so good in the car probably because they were drunk with anticipation. They also discussed the name for the dog and everyone wanted to honor our very first try at owning a dog with his name, Cody. We got there and chatted for a few minutes and then..... there we were with our new addition. No turning back now! We got to get some lunch from the super cool ufo McD's and then headed to a park so we could let the puppy get used to us. Then we loaded back up and headed home. When we pulled in the garage, I was trying to unload everything and answer a phone call so the kids ended up taking the new pup in to see Champ. I had explained to the kids that there might be some problems introducing the dog, but it didn't really sink in because they were too excited to wait for me. All Champ knew was that there was another dog with his kids and he was not happy about it and one of the kids opened the door and Champ flew in and attacked the new little guy. Needless to say everyone was traumatized including the new pup and we waited for the Alpha male, Nate, to get home to do the proper introductions. We did little doses of interaction between the 2 for the first few days and they have been inseparable ever since. I think Cody is starting to get on Champ's nerves though because he just wont leave him alone and trying to take the 2 of them on a walk is a tangle of leashes. So, we are now officially a 2 dog family and that's how it's going to stay.....we aren't running a farm here! :)

Major Deal!

My Jdog did it! He made it through his very first year of playing baseball and major league baseball at that. He started out the season knowing absolutely nothing about the sport and behind all his teammates in skill level. He had some intense coaches that expected a lot out of their players, but they also really knew how to teach the kids good technique. There were some tears shed, but J really dug deep and put all he had into learning how to play and playing well. We even signed him up for a couple of private lessons because he had never hit a pitched ball in his life and his throws needed some serious work. He really impressed his coaches and teammates with how much he improved during the season. We are all so proud of him and I think J is pretty proud of himself too. Hard work and determination pay off.

This was the end of the season party and awards ceremony at a pizza place in Corrales.

J got lots of nice things said about him and his level of improvement that just made him beam.