Here We Go..

The first day of school. Fasten your seatbelts folks. It might be a bumpy ride! John starting High School, Melee' starting Jr. High, Peach is in first, and Ace will not be paroled just yet - sentenced to one more year of Mother's Day Out.


Our little cutie was nervous as always. She has a Very nice teacher, but only one boy from her class last year. She has to start over with girlie friends. Even though I keep them on a pretty consistent bedtime schedule, they are TIRED! There have been lot's of bedtime tears, and a few morning ones.

Melee' is number 53 there on the sidelines, which he hopes will be his permanent home. None of us are liking football, and after a three hour scrimmage on Saturday, we are even more sour than ever. He's had a pretty good week at school, but he's still struggling to find a good buddy. It's hard for a parent to take.

Guess who got his official uniform today! He's bonified. He's loving High School, of course it's the first week.

The C.O.W. Network

Because of the lack of T.V. around here. Our newest form of entertainment is the reality channel out our back porch. We have a view of a cow pasture. I like to watch the white birds that follow the cows around. One day we were sitting out vegging and they all started running in another direction and as we watched a sheet of rain came across the pasture in a straightline toward us.



One morning Charlie said he couldn't see any of the cows but on one side of the pasture he heard "Mooo!" then from the other side he heard "MEEooo!" Then "Mooo!" and "MEEoo" back and forth, back and forth till he heard a great big voice scream "HHAWWWW!" and then total silence.



Just like an episode of Seinfeld.



The other morning, Ace and I were out in the driveway, he was scootering and I was pulling weeds out of the dirt yard and we could hear one of them squeeling and screaming. He'd stop and then start again. Ace came up and asked me "What's that noise?" And I said "One of those cows isn't very happy." and he scootered around again and came back and asked me "What's that noise?" And I said "I don't know, but whatever it is, he's not very happy about it." And he stopped for a sec and then said "Somebody must be squeezing those pink things."



Comic Genius.





The view's not half bad either...

The Importance of Reading Your Manuals

It's 5:30 in the morning and it's still summertime and I'm not asleep.

Because the fire alarm went off at 4:15 this morning for no apparent reason, and I have tried unsuccessfully for the last hour to go back to sleep.

Why would the alarm go off for about three or four minutes and then just stop? They're all connected and we each have one in our bedrooms. It was the most piercing squeal you have ever heard. My ears are still ringing. It managed to get John and Melee' out of bed, which is more than any normal fire alarm has ever done, but the Littles managed to sleep right through it. Meanwhile, Charlie and I are racing around the house looking for smoke and finally for something tall enough to turn them off. (First time I've ever cursed the nine foot ceilings.) They seemed to turn themselves off rather than because of anything we might have done. After they turned themselves off, the normally green light flashed red for about ten minutes. By that time we were back in bed. I watched the light, and after ten minutes it turned back to green. In that ten minutes I thought I heard: water running, someone at the window, a light switch flip on, the air conditioner turn on, my bedroom door open...then the light turned back to flashing red and I realized I would have to get up and stand guard against fires and intruders.

So here I am dear readers. It's 5:54 a.m. and I'm wondering how many other things in this house do I not know how to work.

Ten Days

I've been gone so long the Blogger Dashboard is new?

Whatever.

I'd like to write, but I'm too tired. I don't get the laptop till Charlie gets home. Here's the highlights:

We've dug ourselves out of the boxes.

My Mom and Aunt have decorated.

We hauled off boxes.

I've thrown away a lot of stuff.

I still have no television.

We can both park in the garage.

Youth league football sucks.

Okay, having to manage my 11 year olds football equipment sucks.

High School Band at seven o'clock in the morning sucks.

Land's End is sending my two sons new backpacks to Houston because I forgot to change the shipping address.

It's rained for a week, which would have been perfect if we had seeded the front yard with grass.

But we didn't.

It's time to bale the Agricultural Bermuda in my backyard.

3 days till school starts.

I'm ready. But I'm not ready. One entering High School, one entering Jr. High, one starting first grade and another in Pre-school.

What was I thinking.

Must sleep.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

We try to visit family in Amarillo in August for my Mother-in-law's birthday. We eat at our favorite haunts, do drive -bys on all the houses we used to live in, try to visit friends, sometimes we squeeze in a camping trip. This year we were only there for four days so it was a very quick trip.

While we were there this year, Charlie wanted to go look at Lake Merideth because we had been hearing for the last few years how far the water had gone down. I wasn't really in the mood to get in the car for another hour to go look at some water, or the lack thereof. But, in the interest of harmony I went along for the ride. I have to say, I was really glad I went because I couldn't even believe it!

When John was just 18 months old, we bought a Jet Ski. We would drive to the lake, put in the jet ski on one side and then make three trips back and forth across the lake to take all our gear over to the Sandy Beach. One trip for the picnic, umbrellas, toys, towels, etc. One trip for me and John (it was a really big jet ski) and one trip for the gas cans. We would stay and ride for the day and then make the three trips back and forth to haul it all home. John would always fall asleep against the handle-bar on the way home.

This is the boat ramp where we used to put in the jet ski. See the muddy bottom of the lake in the distance?

This is the new boat ramp they put in back down the hill from the original, after the first one dried up.

Across that general vicinity is where we would go to the Sandy Beach.

This is down by the dam where there is still some water. You can see up from the water there is greenery, then a strip of white rocks and then a small strip of green. That is the original water line.

In Like Flynn

Three hundred and thirty six items later....

We are still digging ourselves out. I've walked thirty-three point six miles since Thursday. The movers were supposed to arrive between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m.. They arrived at about 5:30p.m. At some point during the day, my mom and I gave up the wait and started hauling Honda CR-V size loads of clothes and toiletry items from the dog house. The truck finally arrived and we helped direct traffic for the THREE, count em. three guys they sent to unload the 336 items. They left sometime around 11:00 p.m. In the meantime, Charlie had taken the Suburban to the doghouse and loaded the kids beds and brought them over, because there was NO way we were not sleeping in our new house. So at 11:00 p.m. he and I (mostly he) put together all the kids beds and at sometime around midnight, got the sheets on our own bed and fell in. We haven't slept much since, I'm still not entirely sure what day it is, but we started back to Band Camp today so it must be Monday. I still have a LOT of stuff to bring over from the doghouse and I'm running out of room. I evidently cared alot more about the stuff I packed in those boxes six months ago than I do today. Every time Charlie says "What do you want to do with this?" I keep saying, "OH! Don't show me! Just throw it away, I'll never remember it!"

And as Ty Pennington says, "I guess there's only one thing left to say, Welcome home Dyess family. Welcome home!"