Nana Is Busted!

This is the aftermath of my Mom watching the kids on Saturday night. Batbah ratted Nana out and told me that Tucker was up (aka: roasting marshmallows for smores, stargazing, and watching movies) until about 10:30pm. He went to bed at normal time on Sunday night and then woke up at 6am this morning. He is a hot mess. Addie is tired too, but that one isn't Nana's fault. I'll take the blame for that one...Addie didn't take ONE nap on Saturday and she is still trying to catch up too. Either way, I'm paying for it tonight! Oh yeah, did I mention that Matt's not home tonight? Or any other night this week? Love it!

Frustrated and Disgusted

DISCLAIMER:

This is an honest post with a real need for input. Having said that, one day this post will embarrass Tucker beyond anything he ever thought possible. Feel free to laugh. I do. If I didn't laugh, I'd spend most of my day crying.

We have been having this problem with Tucker for nearly all his life. He can't keep his hands out of his pants. (laugh, laugh, laugh...just get it out now...yes, this is what the post is REALLY about, get over it now, laugh, laugh, laugh...ready to hear the story yet? Keep reading when you have wiped your eyes clear of the tears and your stomach isn't aching with laughter)

I can't recall exactly, but I'm sure it happened around a year, or so, old. He wouldn't keep his hands out of his diaper. It got so bad that we had to seek out only zip-up pajamas because if we put him in 2 piece, or even snap-up jammies, he would put his hands in his diaper. During the night he would make it so that his penis was pointing up, and even sometimes OUT of the diaper, and we were constantly changing clothes and crib sheets. That worked until he figured out how to use the zipper.

Our current situation is that he seems physically unable to keep his hands off his penis. I know this is funny, maybe even inappropriate for blogging, but I'm honestly at my wits end! If I had a dollar for every time I tell him to get his hands out of his pants during the day, I'd be threatening to surpass Oprah's outrageous income of $275 million a year. It's embarrassing for me to take him in public. I have to keep an even closer watch on him in public because I not only have to know where he is, but I have to keep watch to make sure I can see TWO hands instead of just one. Today seemed to be record breaking for the number of times I had to ask him to take his hands out of his pants. Maybe that is why this has finally boiled over for me and I'm blogging about this, of all things! Tonight as he was laying in bed before I tucked him in, he had his hands in his pants. I told him to take his hands out of his pants, and he did. Then he put the same damn hand in his mouth to bite his nails (another fabulous habit that makes me crazy). And YUCKO!! Hands from pants to mouth? AAAHHHAHAAHAH!!! Do you hear me screaming??

Without saying too much and eternally embarrassing Matt and his brother, I will say that I thought this might be a slightly genetic trait. Today I asked my Mother-in-law if she thought her struggles were this severe and she (unfortunately) said, "no". So I guess Tucker has exceeded her expectations! Normally, that would be a good thing.

This is where my feelings are going to get very real, and consequently, might become more hilarious for you....

I am concerned!!! I am worried that he is going to get in trouble when he goes to preschool (not scheduled to happen at this time...THANK GOD!). I am freaking out because the problems seems to be getting worse, not better, or even stabilizing for that matter! Is there something really wrong with him? Are these bizarre and extreme behaviors signs of bizarre and extreme things to come? I'm grossed out.

So instead of just complaining a freaking out, I'm looking to see if there is anyone out there who has words of wisdom, helpful hints or stories that will make me feel better about my situation! Is there hope?

P.S. Good Morning, Teresa! Can you read this better now that I have switched the background? I took your "It's hard to read on the brown background" under heavy advisement and switched. I hope you like the change!

One "YEAH" and a "DUH"

YEAH...this week I became an unofficial and non-certified beautician. I waxed my mother-in-law's eyebrows and then I waxed my own eyebrows! It was super fun! It was free and I got exactly what I wanted. When was the last time you got your brows waxed and walked away feeling like, "Man, that was cheap and they look EXACTLY like I want them to!"? That's what I thought! I'm wondering if I'm brave enough for a self-bikini wax?? YEEAAOOWW!!

DUH...this week Matt and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary and he got me a massage for a gift. Tonight I went and cashed in my gift and got a wonderful, painful, relaxing and long massage! Then towards the end of the massage I started asking her what other kinds of massage she does and she told me about "cupping". I was asking questions and she asked me if I wanted to try it. I said, "Sure, if you have time." So away she goes....fish bowls, balls of burning cotton, rubbing alcohol and my back. It felt tingly and weird, slightly painful and good all at the same time.

PART TWO of this story....Tomorrow my soon-to-be-sister-in-law is having her last bridal shower and it's a cocktail party. I just had my favorite strapless dress altered to fit like a charm and I went strapless bra shopping tonight, after my massage. I was trying a bra on and I turned to see my back and HOLY MOSES!!! This nifty "cupping" session made me look like I was severely beaten with a 2x6 ALL OVER MY BACK! WTF??!!?? When I asked for my "cupping" I didn't think it all the way through...of course this stuff is going to give you hickeys all over your back, but I didn't think of it at the time! So here I am with the greatest complex...do I wear the planned strapless dress and answer endless questions about why I got my ass kicked or I can hurry up and try to find a dress that will cover my back. There is always option #3, which is go to Sephora and buy Kat VonD's tattoo cover up and hope that it also cures hickeys! I'm kind of thinking option 2 would be the most fun, but I also don't know if I have that much time. The shower is tomorrow at 2pm! UGH.

Old McDonald...

Tucker: Mommy, can you sing me a song?

Me: Sure, what song would you like?

T: Old McDonald had a farm.

M: Ok. What animal do you want to sing about?

T: A Mommy.

M: What does a Mommy say? (expecting him to say something like "yelling, yelling here and a yelling, yelling there".....or maybe "nag, nag here and a nag, nag there", maybe that's what McDonald's wife says?)

T: Mooo

M: Excuse me? Mooo? So you want me to sing about a cow then?

T: No, a Mommy.

M: I quit. Sing your own songs.

Questions

So this post is a collection of questions that I wrote down (and this is no lie) at the gym. I got to the gym, dropped the kids off at the kid's gym (daycare) and went into the locker room. I went to the bathroom, had some bathroom thoughts and went back to the locker to write them down. I was standing at the locker writing in my pocket notebook and this is what happened....

Why is it I have to go to the gym to go to the bathroom alone? Why is the privacy worth having to use the hard, sand-papery industrial toilet paper? And since when does using a public bathroom become "privacy"? How unfair is that? Why does my son tell me he wants to punch me in the face? Why does he say he wants to use pepper spray on me the next morning? Which is coming first? The punch in the face or the pepper spray? Why does it matter? Why do I have to go to the gym with a ton of other people to feel alone? Where is the magic coffee that would allow me to stay home and get ripped all at the same time? Why did I close this locker just in time to be called to Kids Gym? Why?

It was a challenging day. I'll try to do better tomorrow. Less yelling. Less crying (for all of us). More patients. More love. I will try my best.

Addicted to Picnik.com

I've spent the ENTIRE night playing with these pictures on picnik.com. Don't even go to the site unless you are ready to be sucked in by the most fun in photo editing EVER!!! Thanks Angela and Hillary!

Supermassive Twilight Tour! ....FINALLY!

I suppose that this story really beings with the post about my son and his art, because that's how this whole trip began. It was a moderately rough start that made me question if I would even get to leave Vancouver!!! But like I said before, the rubber met the pavement and we got the hell out of town as fast as humanly possible...although we did have a vampire in tow!!! HELLO EDWARD. So, my friends, as many of you know this is every one's favorite vampire, Edward Cullen. Stephanie won our Edward at her high school graduation party! It was so funny because it wasn't long before her party that we decided to take this trip and then she wins EDWARD? How cool? What I think is the funniest part is that I'm sure there were actual "real" prizes that probably cost quite a bit more, but being "Twilighters", we couldn't have been more excited! After talking to my friend Olivia, who has gone to Forks in search of Edward, she made sure that I knew that Forks doesn't really have very much going on, so you have to make your own fun. We interpreted that as "take your own cardboard cut-out Edward everywhere you go". He has a fun-filled trip that took him to the following Washington cities (and everywhere in between) Camas, Centralia, Port Angeles, Forks, LaPush, Hoh Rain Forest, and every random, small town along the 101.

So here is the beginning, after we left Camas, we drove to Kalama High School. The high school was the outdoor setting of Forks High School in the movie. So Stephanie is showing Edward around the school. There are more photos that I don't have yet because both Stephanie and I were taking pictures and we haven't exchanged photos yet...so these are just my pictures. What is so dumb is that Stephanie took pictures of me and I took pictures of Stephanie....duh. So we both went home with a ton of pictures of each other, but not many of ourselves! If I get something from Stephanie that I just can't resist, I might have to post a Supermassive Twilight Trip II. ...Reel it in Tami....ok, so this is Mr. and Mrs. Cullen. :)

So after we left Kalama High, we continued our adventure north. We were blasting up the 5 and went screamin' through Centralia, WA. As we were blowing past the town on the freeway, we saw all the cool outlet stores on the side of the freeway. But we were driving past them! When you are out in the boonies of Washington, like we were, the exits are far apart and we would have to drive up a few miles to turn around. Did we stop? I'll let you answer that one. We are two chicks, on a road trip, no responsibilities, and maybe some spare cash. You do the math....

So...I got a cute shirt and a hooded, zip-up sweatshirt from Roxy. Stephanie got a few things from there too. We looked in a few other stores without any luck. Let's blow this popsicle stand. Back on the 5.

We make it to Olympia where we are heading west on the 101 and we are excited and waving our arms out of the windows, Twilight music blasting! When the car behind us comes from behind to pass us the sweet, kind, friendly, Washington resident is flipping us off! Listen, we understand that not everyone is having as much fun as we are on a Wednesday afternoon, but is that really necessary? We waved a friendly, genuine wave as she got off the next exit. Welcome to the Olympic Peninsula.

I'm not sure how we managed to only take this picture ONE TIME. We weaved in and out, and in and out AGAIN countless times into the Olympic National Forest. We can only assume that the forest has a very jagged border because we only have one confirmed "lost" moment on this whole trip. But I guess the key word is "confirmed". We must have seen this damn Olympic National Forest sign about 20 times. I'd love to be exaggerating, but I'm not. We think Edward and his vegetarian family hunted these forests so we decided to stop and let Edward get his picture taken. Oh, did I mention that Stephanie bought us matching Edward/Twilight T-shirts? Day 1, matching black t-shirts. Oh yeah, one more thing...the only thing we listened to the ENTIRE trip was the Twilight soundtrack. Which, if you have not heard, you will LOVE it. Stephanie is supposed to be burning me a copy and I don't think I'm going to be able to wait to get it from her. I might buy it....very soon. The best part about it is that the soundtrack is actual songs, there are no scores on that one. I guess there is another CD with the scores on it. Not interested in that one. ...again, reel it in Tami....Alright, this is where the real fun begins....So we are cruisin' the 101 North and we see this huge sign that says something about "Staircase" in the town of Hoodsport. We are looking around seeing this amazing scenery, magnificent mountains, teal calm waters of Hood Canal and thinking, "Yeah, bring on the stairs!" Our thought process was this: Amazing, clean and new scenery + stairs with elevated views = STAIRCASE. We Want To Go To There (30 Rock fans, anyone?) Ok, so we bust a left off the 101. The enormous, brown park sign makes it sound like it's just a hop and a skip from the 101. What they could have mentioned was that it was a hop, skip, jump, turn in two circles, up hill and down a dirt road. Almost immediately after turning off the highway we see a sign that tells us its 16 miles to STAIRCASE. So we look at each other, check out the time (approximately 2pm) and once again decide that we are girls with no responsibilities and no one to tell us what to do. We are finding the stairs and we are climbing them. We are going to a desirable elevation up above all this beauty, snap a few pictures and continue on our way. About 8 miles into our 16 mile adventure the pavement ends. The road is no longer 2 lanes but more of a generous one lane road. Dry, dusty and bumpy. Stephanie now comments that she is glad we are driving my 4 wheel drive, just in case. The scenery is still great and the sun is shining...we aren't complaining...yet. Eight very long, dusty, bumpy and windy miles later we see the ranger station, a fee?? Yes, the STAIRCASE has a fee. As we pull up closer we see that is a hefty $15.00 fee. Maybe I'm too frugal, thrifty, financially conservative or cheap (however you want to look at it), but I'm thinking $15 bucks is kinda spendy for some stairs. Pulling up very slowly to the ranger station, I make the executive decision that if this forest ranger says that this stair hike is the most magical, wonderful and spiritual hike that she's ever experienced...then we are going to be $15 dollars lighter in the wallet.

Tami: Hello Ma'am. How are you?

Ranger: Good thanks.

T: What can you tell me about the staircase? Is the elevation pretty steep, do you get a great view?

R: The elevation isn't too bad, the hikes are relatively easy. It's a series of 4 trails....

T: Wait. Um, so...there's no stairs? Like step up, stair-climber stairs? Just some trails?

R: Yes.

T: Do you mind if I turn around here?

R: No, not at all. Just don't hit my traffic cone on your way out. Have a good day.

T: Bye Ma'am. Thank you for your help.

WHAT THE....Who is in charge of naming this crap? If it's not stairs don't call it stairs. As my Mom would say, "That's false advertising!" False advertising at its finest. Alright, no time to gripe and complain (either in real life or on the blog) we need to get this show on the road. I know based on my GPS that we have driven northwest off the 101. My thinking is this, we have to be further north than where we started so, let's just find a road on the GPS that will take us back to the 101 by just going east. We punch our restaurant destination into the GPS and sure enough, a "shortcut" to the 101. This is where we are introduced to MORE dirt roads which we later identify as logging roads. There is not another soul in site. I think to myself if we break down or something happens to us two things will happen. 1. We will not have cell service, we will be walking our a**es out of this forest just to get help. 2. When we do find help, will we ever find my car again? These are things running through my mind that I decide, as the older adult in the situation, shouldn't let my younger compadre know I'm kinda freakin'. The map eventually shows us this..."Southeast on road". OOOhhhh, I'm going to say that's not good. If the GPS doesn't even know where you are, you are Supermassively screwed. When we finally reach highway 101, I feel like it looks a LOT like where we started. I punch "Hoodsport" into the GPS (because that was the town where our little adventure began) and it says we are NINE FREAKIN' MILES north of Hoodsport. We just drove for 2 hours and got NINE miles up the road. I'm thinking we could have crawled faster. The ONLY exciting part of this drive, well other than wondering if we would make it out alive, was that we saw a WOLF (aka Jacob) cross the logging road RIGHT in front of us! It was so freaky! We were so excited. We got out the binoculars and tried to find him off in the woods without success.

Ok, logging roads driven: check

Driven in 4 wheel drive: check

Met up with the alpha wolf: check

Back on track to have our "first date" dinner: check

MOVE ON.
After a long day of travel we have finally made it to Port Angeles. This is the scariest, most sketchy small town I have EVER been to. There was a man who was very and obviously controlled by many substances who came busting out the side door of a bar onto the sidewalk where we were walking. He came flying out the door (maybe kicked out?) and started yelling at some guys standing there. Stephanie and I walked quickly. We went to a public, outdoor concert on the pier. The band was a geriatric group of people and my favorite instrument was being played by a woman who was wearing a long denim skirt, white boots and a quilted shirt. After a little research online, I have discovered her instrument is called a washtub bass. It's about as country as it gets, and I've been to and lived in some pretty backwoods places in this country...I was sort of impressed. After our square dance through a sea of dogs and very local people, we head up the our FIRST DATE dinner at Bella Italia. It's the restaurant in town that has assumed the role of the Italian restaurant that Edward and Bella go to in Port Angeles. I met the owner while we were waiting. He was very nice and made a good impression for what would turn out to be a not-so-great dinner. Too bad. We declined the mushroom ravioli dinner, that is the Bella special, because it is $5 bucks more than ANYTHING else on the menu. Instead we both decided to get pizzas. Long story short, we waited a hella long time for pizzas that were burned. Better luck next time. On our way out of town we had to stop for gas. We met up with our controlled substance addicted friend at the bus station that was in the gas station parking lot and Stephanie is pretty sure she saw a prostitute walking across the street while I was pumping gas. Port Angeles has personality. I think that's what you say when you are trying to be polite. After a 12 hour day of travel, we arrived in Forks, Washington. We stayed at the Pacific Inn Motel and had this bad a** room. I don't even think I need to comment. This was awesome, awesome, awesome.
Although he is cold, I wasn't lonely! ha ha ha! Edward stood in the corner of the room and watched us both sleep. When I woke up in the morning he scared the CRAP out of me! There is a man standing in our room...oh yes, our vampire man, it's ok now! The next day we hit all the tourist spots in Forks. The weather was awesome. I think it was 83 degrees but the locals thought they'd been shoved into an oven! We saw one woman at Forks Outfitters who was riding in the store-provided Hover-Round and she was wearing jean shorts and her bathing suit.

When we got to Forks Chamber of Commerce there was a free lance writer who stopped us and asked if we would mind talking to her about our trip to Forks. She only assumed we were in Forks for Twilight because we were carrying around a huge cardboard cut out of Edward. We were tough to pick out in a crowd.

The lady is talking to Stephanie while I'm laughing hysterically and taking pictures of this whole thing going down. At the end of the conversation the lady asks Stephanie her name and how old she is. Stephanie says: My name is Stephanie and I'm 18 years old.

The lady then turns to me and says, "What's your name?" I say, "My name is Tami." "And are you 18 also?" After a long pause and much deliberation, I slowly say, "Sure" with a slow nod of my head. Reporter Lady smiles a cautious smile and says, "No? 19? 20?" Finally I put her out of her misery and tell her I'm 22. HA! I'm joking. I tell her I'm 31 and then she just starts looking at me funny and kind of laughing. "I'm totally serious" was my response to her laughter. Well who knows what she believed, only time will tell when the article is printed. I'm supposed to be getting an email for the link when it's printed...oh yeah, I'll blog...don't you worry!

Stephanie, Edward and Tami in front of Bella's truck.Edward at the student parking lot of the real Forks High School.

Stephanie, Edward and Tami at the Treaty Line.

Stephanie, Edward and Tami. I thought these pictures were so cool when I saw a friend had taken them on her trip. What I didn't realize was that this sign is just the backside of the "No Vampires Beyond This Point" sign. Tricky.

LA PUSH! This was so neat. I have been to Washington beaches before, but never one like this. These logs were massive and ALL over the beach. I think Stephanie took some pictures that I will have to post later of us on the biggest log I've ever seen. I can totally see Bella and Jacob hanging out on this beach...although it was beautiful and sunny unlike all the doom and gloom that is in the book. Another funny story about people getting excited about the nice weather: Now, these people couldn't possibly be locals just because I think if locals are going in the ocean they are wearing wetsuits, but people were going in the water! We couldn't believe our eyes! There were two older women who had a cheap, blow up, neon inner tube and they were taking turns putting it around their waists and going into the waves that were breaking. There were mothers allowing their children to do the same. Crazy stuff. That water is freezing and let's be honest, it wasn't that warm! These people are in the ocean and we are on the shore wearing shorts and hooded sweatshirts. La Push at First Beach. Around 2pm we leave the La Push and Forks area and start making our way south on the 101, headed for home. The 101 is a beautiful drive that winds along the cliffs of the Washington coast. It's amazing scenery because the forest stops right where the beach sands begin. I haven't seen another coastline quite like that before. I think Washington and Oregon are unique like that, but maybe I just haven't seen enough in the world yet to know any differently. Either way, I'm impressed. After driving past several pull-outs for beach access we finally stop at this beach, which is creatively named "Forth Beach". Notice the biggest rock down on the beach, we climbed it! Stephanie had never seen tide pools before so she was excited to see this sea life in the wild.

We had so much fun at this beach and I think we ended up spending about 2 or 3 hours there! We are going to be getting home late!

I realized on this trip what a sucker I am for signs that tell you to go see stuff. I called it something different on our trip and I'm not sure it's appropriate for my PG rated blog, but here it goes. You know, like when people say they are a "shoe whore", well I have that problem but with sightseeing things. For example, we are driving down the road and I see a sign that says "stairs", well I gotta see 'em. Here, I saw a sign that said "Big Cedar Tree". I can't possibly pass that up! So here we are at Big Cedar Tree. Now this is a huge, freakin' tree! It wasn't a tall tree, but that's OK because they didn't advertise it as a "big, tall cedar tree". No false advertising here! Later on our drive we saw another sign about another big tree, but Stephanie was my support group for W.F.N. (whores for nature).

I have not included our 14 mile detour to see the Hoh Rain Forest that ended in another ranger station with another $15.00 park fee and another U-turn. I have also not mentioned our phone call to a ranch trying to figure out if we could take a horseback ride in the rain forest or the rediculous wait and poor dining experience at Burgerville in Centralia on our way home. So as you can see, we did more than we ever expected. If I had known that there was so much to do on the Olympic Pennisula, I would have planned our trip for more than 2 days. We had a blast in Forks and La Push, not so much in Port Angeles, but it was all worth it. I would highly recommend this trip. But what I thought was crazy was all the people who had driven and flown from so far away just to experience Forks and the Twilight Zone! We met a lady from South Carolina, a family who was on a group road trip from Colorado, we had a not-so-pleasant photo experience with a old guy from Wyoming and we saw cars from all over the country. Nuts. I mean it was fun and I'm glad we did it, but I'm also very glad that we only drove 4.5 hours to do it! We packed so much into those 2 days that I dropped Stephanie off at 11pm and I got home at midnight!

Stephanie, thanks so much for all the fun. I had a great time and I hope you did too. Can't wait to see your photos! Let me know when you want to do our movie tour of Oregon! We might have kids in tow, but we will make it work.

I hope you have enjoyed the stories and I also hope the wait was worth it. Oh, and one more thing, I couldn't wait for Stephanie any longer...I bought the Twilight soundtrack!

Supermassive Blog

Seriously...I think I'm going to be posting tomorrow (Saturday) night about my trip. It might take you a long while for you to read it. Especially if you are one of my Mommy Friends who can't possibly have more than 5 minutes to yourself to read it. Which is the same reason this blog is taking so freakin' long for me to write! I will not disappoint!! ...I hope! ha ha ha

Blog-a-rific Shannon

Tonight Matt and I had a mini-date at our local McMenamins pub. We really went there to talk about the different benefit choices that his new job offers, make some decisions and fill out the paper work...but when that's my entire interaction with him for the day, I'm callin' it a "date". You call it what you want.

So on our self-proclaimed "date" Matt had taken a card out of his wallet that is credit card sized and put it on the table. It was not our method of payment, but a get-out-of-jail-free-card. I know an NYPD police officer who gave us that card. The legend is that if you get pulled over, you slip this special card in with your drivers license and whooaalla...No ticket. So we had this out on the table because we were looking at it and the waitress, our new friend Shannon, came by and picked it up thinking it was our card. We started joking about what it was and that it was not a legal form of tender. After explaining what it was she said, "Well, it's got to be worth something here. The last round is on me." Whoa. So then we start back tracking, "Oh that's ok, don't worry about it." etc. Then I finally do the smart thing, I say, "I think this is the part where we say 'Thank you', and leave it at that". She started laughing as she walked away and said, "Yeah, that's right!" Matt and I sat and enjoyed the fact that our bill was now half off...not bad, huh? So when Shannon returns to the table to hand us our bill, she says, "It turns out I don't have a tab for this table." Seriously? That totally made my day. Not only was I on a "date", I had spent the day getting my teeth wrenched at ortho, chasing Tucker and dealing with a sick Addie. Tough day. Momma deserved 2 glasses of McMenamins pinot noir! Hurray for Shannon.

Supermassive Twilight Delay

The more I write, the more I remember...sorry my Twilight blog is taking so long! I will post by the end of the weekend. I promise? ha ha ha

The Vandal Formally Known as Tucker

Still in the works is a huge blog about my awesome and "supermassive" Twilight tour of Forks, Washington...but this is a story within that story.

I'd had this trip planned to Forks, WA for several weeks and I was SOOO looking forward to it, for many reasons. We (my friend Stephanie and I) were going to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted and we had no one to answer to. She just graduated from high school and she answers to her parents and I have two kids that are the boss of me. I think we both needed this break. So I leave my house at 8am on Wednesday morning with high hopes, sunshine and a full tank of gas. I was on my way to get Stephanie from her house. One pit stop and I arrived at her place without incident. We immediately stepped off the deep end into the "Twilight Zone". We had matching Twilight shirts, a life-sized cardboard cutout of Edward and glow in the dark vampire teeth. (please keep all snickering and jokes to yourself. We know we dorked out, we don't need to be told) We leave Stephanie's house on a mission: camera batteries, camera memory card and snacks= Walmart. We quickly gather our necessities and bust out of there...but not without a trip to the Starbucks across the parking lot. We get set with coffees and scones....LET THE ROAD TRIP BEGIN!!! FORKS OR BUST....famous last words....

10:30am

Ring, ring...ring, ring...ring, ring.... "Hello?"

Matt: Hey, how are you?

Tami: Um, fine...great. We just got some coffee and we are heading out of town. What's going on?

M: I have something awesome to tell you.

T: Awesome like, yeah good, or awesome like I really don't want to know?

M: Well I'll let you decide. So, Tucker and I were in the backyard and I had to go in to the bathroom. When I came back I went outside to check on Tucker and I couldn't find him anywhere. I was yelling and yelling for him and I started to really freak out. He wasn't in the backyard at all.

**side note** "our" (Matt's mom's yard) yard has no fence. He could leave the backyard from any direction and end up either down on our street or behind the house in a plethora of winding neighborhood streets. NOT my favorite.

M (cont): So I ran out the front door yelling for him and luckily he was out there. But. He was drawing. With a sharpie. On my Mom's car.

**side note** Matt's Mom drives a 2008 RX350 LEXUS.

T: Come on Matt. Seriously? Are you joking? Tell me you're joking. Right? ...Matt?

M: No, serious. He drew all over it.

T: (silence...stunned...SCARED I'M GOING TO HAVE TO GO HOME!!! NOOOOOOO!!! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO FORKS NOW! AAAAAHHHH!!!) Um, do you want me to come home?

M: Nope

T: Is Tucker OK? Did you hurt him.

M: He's in timeout. Probably for the rest of the day.

T: What did your Mom say?

M: Oh, she's in the shower. She doesn't know yet.

**I hear Michele in the background on the phone**

T: Well, that sounds like your Mom. Good luck with that. Call me back!!!

This is where you hear the rubber meet the road. We got the hell out of town as fast as humanly possible. Wishing I had vampire skills to just run, run faster than I could even be driving, just to get out of there to make sure that this little "incident" didn't drag me back into motherhood when I was supposed to be living my old carefree life again for just 48 hours.

Matt used some rubbing alcohol to get the Sharpie off the car. I'm now concerned that the paint will melt off soon, but he seems to think this is an acceptable solution. So far, no paint damage, but if we get some I'll be sure to blog about that too. Tucker has all his limbs in tact and doesn't seem to be psychologically damaged from all the yelling that I'm sure went on after Matt's discovery. AFTER the "art" (or graffiti, however you look at it) was removed, Michele thought it was funny...like only a Grandma could.

When Michele asked Tucker why he drew on Grandma's car he said, "Because you like black. Black is your favorite." Which only makes this even funnier because it's TRUE! Her favorite color is black and she wears it often. He was just being thoughtful, right? And I do have to say that his art/drawing/writing is evolving and it looks great. I'm really proud of him. I just wish he could display his talent with washable crayons and old fashioned construction paper.

The VERY NEXT DAY..... Day Two, Supermassive Twilight Trip: This is the text I get from Matt at 11:18am. **The only editing is due to language.

"Tucker just tried to take a sh*& in the backyard. It turned out to be a total mess. He said he wanted to be like Bo (our dog). I heard screaming and went outside to see every fly in the area swarming his a**"

I'm not even going to comment on this...I'm only going to say this...SERIOUSLY?

Bridal Shower Fun!

A few weekends ago, we celebrated my sister-in-law-to-be, Sara, with a great bridal shower that was hosted by her best friend and maid of honor, Liz. It was a beautiful bridal shower with one truly fun game and lots of great food and wine. Excellent job Liz!

This is Teresa (Sara's Mom), Sara and Kathie (my Mom)
Me and Sara with our bridal shower self portrait!The shower was a wine and cheese themed shower with the gift theme being "entertaining". She got so many great entertaining items like appetizer plates, margarita and wine glasses, serving dishes and some things to help her work on her cooking skills.

Cute Addie Moments

Addie got some bubbles from our dear friends, the Howells and she loves them! She really likes to bite the bubble wand. When she will give up the wand, she actually likes the bubbles too! She recently discovered how much fun toilet paper can be when you pull and pull and pull. She wrapped herself up in it and started laughing! I guess if this keeps her busy and I get a shower that day, I can live with a little wasted toilet paper.

Addie got a doll crib from Grandpa Gerry and Grandma June for her birthday. With a little help, she climbed in a joined her baby doll in the crib.

Family Update

So this is our family celebrating our big news! If you haven't heard yet, Matt got a job!!!! HURRAY! We waited so long for this and it's going to be great! Matt has been out of work since August and out of the Army since October. We are stretched financially to the point that I didn't think was even possible to make it another day, same with our patients and hope. He starts work on Tuesday, July 7th. We have already gotten excited about looking for homes and starting the next chapter of our lives together.

In other good news, on June 16th Matt is officially out of the Army...totally! When he got his ROTC scholarship, it is an 8 year commitment. We spent just more than 7 years active duty and then from October to June in the inactive reserves. The 8th anniversary of his commissioning came and went in June and we are totally, 100% out of the Army.