So that happened

My teen is gone. We took her down yesterday for her annual visit, she will come back sometime in early August. I am glad that she has that much more family, I am ok with getting a little break from the teen angst, I am happy that she gets to experience lots of new and different things every year. With that said, I miss her already. She goes every summer, has for the last 7 years. For some reason, this year, it was a little harder to let her go.

My mother in law is doing awesome. The doctors are somewhat confident they got all the tumor and she was up walking around the hall 5 days after surgery. Her will and determination are just so amazing to me. While she is taking a medical vacation (HA!) her daughters are repainting and sprucing up her home so when she comes home, it is clean and bright with the minor repairs done. I am impressed with their spirits as well, it shows that the apples didn't fall far.

So, the town celebration was this weekend. 411 is in Girl Scouts, so she had to go help with their bake sale. She was so excited, she was up at 6 AM. The carnival is across the street from us. Usually we go camping over the weekend is in town. I remember the reason now. It isn't to deprive my children from the fun, as they like to tell us, it's because it is so expensive. The tickets for the rides (all 13 of them) were $20 for 22 or $1 a piece. Each ride took between 3 and 5 tickets. If you do the math, that is 4-7 rides and with 4 kids, it doesn't work. You could throw darts at balloons, 5 darts would cost you $10. I would so much rather save my money and take the kids to an amusement park. I love the rest of the celebration though. They have city wide yard sales, a flea market, a pie auction for the volunteer fire department, a car show, a free kids activity "carnival", parades, Tabor Idol ( which Mike's twin sister MICHELLE won third place. I still think she was robbed), a street dance, a band, a beer garden, a free drive in movie (well, sit in the grass in the park and watch the side of the building) and other stuff I am forgetting. Everyone comes out, even from surrounding towns, and has a good time. The biggest problem was some teens throwing stink bombs at people. With the horror stories on CNN, I am thinking it is not such a bad place to be.

Mikey is twitching to get down to the river to camp. The Mighty Mo is down to normal levels, the ground is mostly dry. He is antsy to get the grass mowed, the sinkholes filled and get the camper down there so we can celebrate the 4th of July. Mr is just as excited. What a crazy summer it has been. It feels like we are getting Spring weather in late June. Hopefully, it will be summer soon. Not that I am in any hurry for the humidity.

As requested

I was asked to make a cancer quilt for my mother in law. I took the ribbons that were relevant to her and came up with this pattern. Now, it is just gathering material, cutting, sewing, clipping, washing, drying, washing drying, washing, drying .........

Velletta

My mother in law is amazing. She is 70 years old and went through 8 hours of surgery with flying colors. She is doing well, cracking jokes and feisty as ever. We were at the hospital for about 12 hours yesterday and every time one of the doctors came out (she had 3 different surgical teams) they told us how super she was handling everything. Today we stopped by and she was alert and her only complaint was where they took the skin graft. Her plastic surgeon had come in and told her she was one tough lady. I can only hope to aspire to be as strong as her.

And then....

SO I went back to the dentist so he could look at my holes today. Keep in mind he is about an hour and fifteen minutes away. I was in the office for less then 5 minutes. He looked in and said, yep the blood clot got infected, put some of the NASTIEST tasting stuff ever made in the hole and sent me away till next week. Let me emphasize, it is the most putrid, foul tasting stuff. The drainage from the infection tasted better. And it has to sit in there and wear itself away. I will admit that it did what he said it would, there is now no more pain at all in that area but DAMN!
Did I tell you about Mikey going four wheeling in the minivan? We wanted to check out the river since it had gone down since the last time he looked. So we drive down the road, peek over the dike. The road is dry (it was 6 inches under water) so we go a little further. It was a little muddy, mostly gravel so we went further. I could see where the road had been washed out on the sides so I started getting really nervous. Mike says, it's fine, there is a solid base, we are good. Yep we were so good we ended up getting stuck. He got out and was in the mud to his knees in some spots. Thank god there was a good Samaritan there to drag us back. It is going to have to be dry for over a week before I want to go look again.
After that little adventure, we had an impromptu BBQ. I love those, you never know who will show up. This family always makes sure there is enough for twice as many people so that is never an issue. Good food and good visits, a great way to spend Fathers day.

Agony

Ok, so here is the story. My sister in law, Kathy, had some teeth pulled a couple of weeks ago. We were talking because I have had teeth pulled before on a couple of occasions. Even the army doctors gave me narcotics. Her dentist told her to buy some Tylonel. So anyway, I had the 5 pulled on Monday. I texted Kathy teasing her that I got drugs, naner naner. I wish I hadn't done that. I have never really needed them before after the pulling, it feels so much better then whatever pain the tooth had been giving me. BUT this time, I was cocky and ended up getting two of the holes infected. Oh man, you wanna talk pain. I have been living with an icepack and popping vicaden til I felt like HOUSE. Mikey finally talked me into going to the clinic to get penicillin yesterday. I am feeling soooo much better. I am still super self conscious about being in the middle of having all this dental work done, I look so trailer park. I am using it as a warning to my kids, you brush your teeth or this is what you will look like. MUHAHAHA

Bubba has body odor. And is sleeping till noon. And voluntarily taking showers. Sweet lord, I am not ready for puberty with him. Cuz we all know that 411 is right behind him.

My mother in law has had a ton of appointments, poor thing. And of course, they are all in Omaha which is 40 miles away from her. I have been impressed with the girls' willingness to take time off and run her here and there. It isn't so bad when you split all of it between all of us. She will be having surgery on the 23rd, keep her in your thoughts please.

Summer bits

Let's see, what is new in my world. Well, yesterday I went and had 5 teeth pulled. I am a little sore and a lot tired but mostly just self conscious about the holes in my head. 411 is off at the local library, it is her new favoritest place in the world. I am hoping that Mr takes Bubba and 411's lead when it comes to reading. Chick is bummed cuz one of her fishes died. We killed ALOT of tadpoles at Chelle's frog pond, aka her pool. It was too cold to get in the mood to open it so we got a late start. (I say we cuz I volunteered to help just so I could swim too) By then, the frogs had discovered it. Mike, Chelle, Kelly, Megan, Kenzie, Chick and I were trying to net out all the debris. Kelly said she took the title because she got the most big leaves. I present that I took the title of master pool cleaner upper the next day when Mike and I stopped by to see how the chemicals had worked. There was a frog Mikey found in the skimmer box that was every bit as big as his fist. Startled the be jee sis outta me when he decided to leap for freedom. We got him down to the creek eventually but now I am wondering where it's mate is.
We stopped by the river to check on it because we had heard there was people staying at the campground. I wondered how accurate that was since we have had severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding around here. Yea, the water was up over the road into the campground. Again. Mike is very bummed. We have had one nice day surrounded by 4 wet days repeatedly. I don't want to ever hear another farmer complain we need more rain this year.
Mike heard from Snatch the other day. Mike gets really worried if he doesn't get at least an email once every three works or so. His sister Dianne has the funniest sense of humor, she sent him a note that said it was from the mother of the illegitimate child he refuses to acknowledge. If you know Snatch at all, you can really appreciate the humor of it. He got a giggle, and that was the whole point. He still says he doesn't need anything but you can hear the down in his voice. I'm gonna come up with something.

River

I love this picture of my neices, this was Memorial day weekend. I am so not on top of uploading...
















LOVE this one, it's Stacy all grown up!















Mr.'s bestest girlfriend.....















Even JJ got in on the digging action.



















And this is what our lot looked like after the great flood. The water had come up over some of our lot, but we got really lucky. It is supposed to crest again in the next couple of days so lets hope I am not talking prematurely.....