Ninjas don't need titles

          Yesterday I went boating with the Tylers.  We wanted to leave at 1:00 so Jessica Baum came to pick me up at 12:40.  I should have known that because I was coming along, that we would be doomed to be a few hours behind schedule.  So we got to the Tyler's house (I always want to refer to the as the Schroaths), but they weren't there yet.  They were at a baby shower.  Jbaum and I were confused as to why Jonathan would be at a baby shower, but who really knows with that kid sometimes.  They eventually got home at about 1:20.  We then were corrected because they were really at a baby blessing.  Ok, Jonathan got off the hook for that one.  We got everything ready to go and Jschro mentioned that we had to swing by Jonathan's mom's house to get some keys to a storage shed so we could get the wakeboard, tube, and skiis.  A seemingly simple task right?  Wrong!

          We get to her house and no one is home.  We tried calling her, but no answer.  We all really wanted to do more than just drive around on the boat so I suggested we look for an open window.  One of the windows in the basement was open.  Perfect, our point of entry.  What I did not mention was that it was about 18" by 18" and level with the ground.  Also, the screen was still in.  Luckily we had MacGyver with us (aka Jonathan) and between the two of us, my driver's license, and his keys, we were able to pop the screen out.  To make the situation more difficult, the window was right above the sink.  Jonathan had to lower me down feet first while I tried not to step on the dishes in the sink.  With his help, I got my footing and I was in!  My first real b and e!  For all of you who are not criminals or do not watch cop shows, that stands for breaking and entering.  Ok, so that probably wasn't the first time I have broken into a house before.

           Back to the story, I unlocked the front door and Jonathan came in.  Thank goodness he think is also trained in something, I don't know what, and he quickly found the keys hidden in the filing cabinet.  We set off to the storage unit to get the necessary boating items.  It took some time and wrong turns to locate the correct storage unit, but we made it.  I ate a really hard peach on the way.  Jschro, I am still grateful for you feeding me.

 

          We finally got to the lake at 3, minus the wakeboard which couldn't be found, and we started with tubing.  Garrett (Jessica Tyler's younger brother) went first because he is the youngest.  When he was done we realized how much air the tube had lost.  We thought that Christmas and boating was ruined.  But, Jschro has amazing lung capacity and she was able to inflate it enough for it to be usable.  Hooray!!  We had a great time boating and no one got too burned or seasick.  Overall, it was a great day!

One is a genius, the other's insane

          Dakota is totally obsessed with Merry and Pippin.  It is kind of weird how fixated she is.  Every time we open our bedroom door, she rushes to the doorway and starts to go in.  Now she is a smart dog and she knows she is not allowed in the bedroom unless she is invited, but she has been sneaking in as much as possible.  When we first brought them home, she sat and stared at them  for at least 20 minutes.  She didn't even budge when Louis opened the snack jar.  She is Pavlovian to a T and when that jar opens she normally runs over and starts drooling because she knows she is getting a treat.



Are these the faces of vicious killers?

          If we come home one night to find the cage open, the dogs tied up, and my credit card stolen, then we will be concerned.  Until then, Dakota is just one weird little dog and they are just two cute, little rats.

The Tragic Tale of Penelope



          My proclivity towards keeping poisonous pets all started when we first moved to Boise, ID.  There was a period of a month or so where we were waiting to move into our house.  We didn't want to stay in a hotel that long so we rented a little house that has since been demolished.  We called it the spider house.  There was one room we didn't even go into for fear of being carried off to the forest. Just like in Harry Potter.  We did a lot of cleaning to make the place inhabitable.  As we cleaned, we found a black widow. From then on, we fed every spider we found to her.  It was pretty cool to have a little nature show in our house.  As I recall, when we moved out we left her on the counter.  Surprise new tenants!

        From then on, I have always thought they were so cool.  Last summer we found two black widows.  One was in our kitchen and one was right outside our front door.  Any normal person would kill them and consider the world a better place.  Not Louis and I!  We caught them and put them in a vase in our kitchen.  We would feed them beetles, moths, other spiders, and crickets from the petstore when we couldn't find other bugs. I am surprised that they never ate eachother. 

          We named them Penelope and Persephone.  I worried about the two of them being in the same vase because Penelope was kind of a bully and would steal all of the food.  Persephone was smaller so she couldn't fight back very well.  I eventually separated them.  This way I could make sure they each had enough to eat.  Turns out that Penelope was a truly stupid spider.  I would get things stuck in the web for her and she would kind of try to wrap them up and the she would just forget about them.  Persephone, on the other hand was a master hunter.  I didn't have to get the bugs stuck in her web and she would quickly wrap them up and suck them dry.  She would then cut them down from her web when she was finished eating.  Penelope begin to get thinner and thinner because she wasn't eating.  I tried feeding her small defenseless bugs, but it was all to no avail.  She just couldn't catch anything.  I was getting desperate, so I put them back together, in hopes that Persephone would do all of the work and then Penelope would steal the food.  It didn't work.  One morning, I found Penelope dead, all shriveled up.

          She didn't actually die from a freak bungee jumping accident, but it was stupidity that killed her. Here are the condolences I received from Louis' mom. "Dear Louis and Katie, Even the elephants aresad that your black widow has died.  (There were elephants on the front of the card and they were clearly mourning).  Why does the black widow kill the male after mating? So she doesn't have to hear the snoring.  What do you call the man with a shovel stuck in his head? Doug. Anyhow, I thought I'd send a check because you are grieving.  I was going to donate to the Black Widow Society, but I didn't have the address." What a beautiful, thoughtful note. Penelope would have laughed at the jokes.  We will probably spend the money on a headstone that will remind us of her forever.

    

If You Give A Mouse a Cookie

          This was one of my favorite book as a kid. I love the illustrations and that little mouse is just so cute!  I actually memorized the whole book and acted it out for a project in Mrs. Fearies 10th grade english class.  I think each of us can relate to the little mouse because we all like cookies and we all get distracted.  Ok, maybe not all of us, but certainly all of the Hamson's and Louis.
         
          Anyway, the other day I was actually doing the dishes and then I moved on to the counters and then swept as usual.  Well, I noticed some spots on the floor so I wiped those up. While I was doing that, I noticed that our cupboard was dirty.  Now you would think that I would go through and clean all of them.  You would be wrong.  I just did the one that I was looking at.  After scrubbing the one cupboard I noticed that the wall was a little dirty.  So naturally, I scrubbed the one wall.  That put me by the front door which, surprise, was dirty.  Why would a front door be so dirty you ask?  Well, with three dogs constantly jumping up on it when we ignore them outside, it gets dirty fast.  Thankfully, Louis installed a screen door and it is no longer a problem.  Back to the door.  I cleaned that and saw just how dirty our living room floor was.  Correction:  I saw how hairy the floor was.  I vacuumed.  After vacuuming we basically have four dogs because  of all the hair that I suck up.  Sorry, no pictures, you would be disgusted.  When I finished vacuuming I realized how long it had been since I dusted.  I stopped there and that was the end of my cleaning spree.  It was great while it lasted. 

          So, if you come to my house you could probably follow of line of cleanliness that meanders around the house.

Don't you just want to go and read the book now?

Happy 4th of July

          Thankfully, this did not happen.  I did not blast any cute, little, old ladies out of their wheelchairs.  I had the pleasure of doing the Stonehenge firework show again this year.  It wasn't anything huge, but we did have fun.  Luckily there were people a couple of streets away doing the big ones so ours were supplemented by those.  Overall, it was great.  No one caught on fire and everybody left happy.  The rain stopped and didn't cancel the show.  Sorry this one is short.  I am tired.

 

          I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day!

The Blob



          This is almost an exact description of what happened. I was cooking meat for tacos and I didn't want to pour the grease into the sink where Louis was doing the dishes.  Yes, he was doing the dishes.  So I walked into the bathroom to pour it down that sink.  My whole life I have been rinsing off hamburger meat into the sink.  Louis warned me not to, but I didn't listen.  In fact I remember saying something exactly like what is in the comic.  Well, I proceeded to pour the fat down the drain and we enjoyed the tacos.  The next time we used the sink didn't go so well. It was really clogged.  We tried pouring boiling water down the drain, but it was useless.  

         

          We had to take the whole drain apart and clean it out.  I don't know if any of you have seen the movie The Blob, but it is what I thought about when we were trying to clean the drain.  It was disgusting!  Black slime was coating the inside of the pipes.  I was quite hesitant to put my fingers in them to clean them out.  I don't know how they get so dirty.  In most cases, it is just soap and water that go down the drain.  After cleaning out the pipes and putting them in boiling water, we discovered that the pipe that was connected to the wall was also full of slime and we couldn't figure out a good way to get that clean.  I suggested bringing the hose in the house and blasting it, but I think that would have ended badly and would have lead to another funny post for all of you.  We hoped that by putting the pipes back together, that it would be sufficiently clean to drain.



The handsome plumber.





         After Louis figured out how to reassemble the pipes we poured some more boiling water down the drain.  It was all to no avail.  To add insult to injury, we were now left with leaky pipes.  The whole endeavor was totally pointless and now we have to wait for our landlord try and remedy the problem. However, I did learn a few lessons: 
     1.  Do not pour grease down the bathroom sink.  It cannot handle it.
     2.  Sometimes your husband really does know what he is talking about.
     3.  I never want to be a plumber because they deal with disgusting stuff and they could be killed by the blob at any minute.

The Word was Born

 

        Ok, so this is not the most accurate telling of this story.  According to my sister Kim, she was cutting me a slice of zucchini bread and she had some difficulties.  The slice was nice and fat on top, but it got progressively thinner towards the bottom until it was only a sliver.  She handed the misshapen piece of bread to me and said, "Here's a crapslice."  I liked the word and the bread.  I continue to use the word wherever it is needed. 

         Our family is notorius for making up words.  One of my favorites was pumminitzy. (Disclaimer: I have no idea how to spell these words because we only say them and sadly they have not made it to the dictionary).  Anyway, pumminitzy.  Nick made up this little gem when he was little and to this day, we still don't have a clear idea of what it means.  Ask him.

          The next word is flooty.  Now this wonderful little word is actually functional.  It is defined as a piece of lint or some other unrecognizable thing on someone's clothing.  Let me use it in a sentence.  There is a flooty on your sweater.  Doesn't that perfectly describe that little unknown thing clinging to your clothes?  I thought this was a real word until I went to college and no one had any idea what I was talking about when I picked the flooty off of their clothes.  Try using this word sometime.  You might find that you enjoy it.

          I hate the words binky and pacie.  I am talking about what people call the pacifier they stick in their crying kid's mouth.  They are just so sissy.  Luckily, my dad served a mission to Finland and he was able to bring back their word to the states and introduce it to our family when I arrived.  We call it tootie.  That isn't nearly as dumb right?  Louis thinks we will use another word, but I will get to spend all day with the little kid.

          The next two words can be talked about together because they both basically mean the same thing.  Ningrit and DTAR.  A ningrit is someone that does something stupid.  I am not sure why we needed that word in our family because we rarely do anything dumb.  The other word is an acronym for "Dumber Than A Rock."  When Dan was little he ate a rock at least once.  We joked that he was dumber than a rock because even rocks don't eat rocks.  Thankfully, he grew out of this phase.

          Well, I hope this gave you some insight as to why my blog has a derivitive of the word crap in it.  I asked for other ideas on Facebook, but for some strange reason, everyone liked this name.