lemon ice cream

We're having an ice cream social for enrichment tomorrow night with assorted homemade ice creams.   I made lemon ice cream today and raspberry ice cream topping.  Oh YUM!  I taste tested it,  cause of course you wanna be sure it's good if you take it to a party...  It's a delicious treat.  I'm excited for tomorrow - it'll be a scrumptious night!

There's a snake in our yard and he's apparently decided to stay for the summer.   He lives right by my window, which my Mom points out every time she talks about him - which is a lot cause she's just fascinated by it.  She watches it every day and yesterday she was super excited cause she saw him get a drink.  AND he shed his skin and she was way excited about that.  I feel a little grossed out about that.  

Here's my window that he lives right by.  He wasn't there this morning but I'm sure he'll come out when Mom gets home, he seems to like her.  Which is fine by me.

Mom thinks we need to name him now.  I'll leave that up to her, I don't want to get too personal with the snake-that-lives-right-by-my-window.

Budding Photographer

While we were in Utah, my nephew decided it would be fun to learn how to take pictures with my camera.  Now, he's 4 and doesn't need much instruction of course, so I just let him run with it.  Here are some choice photos:Lots of headless, torso shots!  This is because he snaps then moves the camera before the image is captured...

Several cut off heads but then, he started to get the hang of it:

Much better.  Avery started taking pictures too, with similar results.  I think in a few years, with a little practice, we'll have a great brother-sister photography team!  

Flat Tire

We drove to Utah for a short visit last Friday.  On the way we got a flat tire.  We were in Glenwood Canyon and hit a rock (a pretty big rock) and it did my tire in.  So, we pulled over and Justin was the hero of the day and changed the tire (his first attempt ever - and he was very manly and wouldn't let me get near it and made me stay on the safe side of the road) and got us back on the road again.  These visuals might help set the scene for you:

Justin is getting the jack under the car and giving oncoming traffic a nice view of his underwear - owing, of course, to the fact that he wears his pants so low...  (Seriously, how can that be comfortable??)

Then the jack fell.  It was kind of a slow motion moment as the jack and the car just slowly fell back.  I was glad that the tireless part of the car was on the gravel side of the road so it didn't hit the asphalt.  But I was really glad Justin wasn't under the car!

And here's the damage.  It's kind of hard to see in this picture but the wheel had to be replaced as well as the tire.  One of the spokes (?) for the lug nuts had to be replaced too, although that wasn't due to the rock.  

A couple riding their bikes stopped to tell us that our hub cap had rolled across the highway and into the ditch and they were very concerned that we knew where it went so we could go get it cause it'd be awful to have no hubcap!  Apparently they didn't notice that I'm already missing two others, so really, this just makes it a majority.   I think I'll remove the lonely one that's left. Needless to say, we did not cross the highway and search through the knee-high weeds to find it.

So, in case you're ever in a similar predicament here are some pointers.  I was glad we were prepared!  We had an emergency roadside kit that had the lug nut wrench thingy (I'm all about the technical terms!), a nice heavy, hallow bar to use as leverage to get the lug nuts loose (many thanks to my brother-in-law, Chad, for that one!), a cell phone  (to get pointers from Dad as we worked), and wipes (tires are filthy, nasty things!).   And, we were really close to the West Glenwood Springs exit, which was a blessing in itself, but a further blessing was that - provided you can figure out their really stupid Vailesque 20-way round about - there's a Big-O Tire right off the highway.  And their employees are very nice and helpful!   And all this only increased our travel time to about 10 hours and cost around $100 (because the tire has a warranty).  

cardboard cut out

We're planning a family trip to Yellowstone this summer - family meaning The Grands (Gram & Papa), Mandy and her family and Becky and her family and me and Justin.  Except that me and Justin will likely not be able to go now which is entirely (ENTIRELY) Justin's fault.  (Perhaps I'll explain later when I've come to terms with it. For the time being I am in denial.)  Anyway, Mom suggested we get a babysitter for him and I can still go.  I said great, and I'll bring a life size cardboard cut out of him so we can still take our family picture for Christmas cards.  He really likes the cardboard cut out idea.  How about this picture?

Well, his hair is longer now (ridiculous, I know) and I'll have to find a full body shot to really make it work...  But I think we do have the bigger-than-life teenager look about this one.  Hmmm...

So Enlightening

Justin and I had an interesting conversation the other night.  It centered around school work but then branched out into the rest of life.  Apparently my brain is like a big grid and functions with several small Carrie's running here and there, pulling things from file cabinets and checking color coded charts.  And, I expect everyone to be like that and he just isn't.  His brain is more like chaos.  (OK, chaos is my phrase but I kept it to myself.)  He figures things out when he does and he's in no rush to do things.  For example, assignment deadlines - highly overrated.  And really just useful for people like me who need to put the information on the color coded chart.  

First of all, I do not know what he's talking about!  Haha!  Ok, I do, but only to a small degree.  And I understand that he's a teenager and they just don't work the same way we old folks do.  But really!

Secondly, I realize that I'm (a little) anal but would it kill him to just try to be the slightest bit organized??  At least in some areas of his life?  Like the areas that will affect him for a long time...

So, where's the happy medium for a Type A mom and her carefree, careless teenager?  Sigh.

handy little tip

I heard this great tip on the radio a couple weeks ago.  When you're driving a car that you aren't familiar with or is new or you just forget which side your gas tank is on most cars have a trusty little arrow that points to the side of the car the tank is on!  See the little arrow in this fuzzy photo?  There ya go.  It's on the driver's side.

Perhaps everyone already knows this but I am usually on the slow team with such things so I was amazed and really excited to learn this!