random thoughts

Thinking back to when I was a kid....I realize, that although I didn't have a "perfect" (whatever that is supposed to mean) childhood, it was damn near what I would imagine perfect would mean. We had this beautiful yard living in Garson, and over the years when I pictured what raising my own children would be like, I imagined a big pretty yard, and pink little barbie style tents set up so my little girls would be able to camp out right in our own yard. Funny, a big part of me always knew I would have the little girls I would need to make this a reality. Though I never imagined it would be two little girls of the exact same age and conception date, I feel like its just nature getting me back for being the little scoundrel I most certainly was. Between my sister Liisa, and my cousin Mailis, we sure made double trouble. I can only imagine the treasures these two have in store for me.

Liisa and I hid hamsters from our parents for years before they caught on. On one occasion, we got a little too close to the wire when playing with one of our "secret" hamsters in the living room. On noticing the parents pulling in the driveway, we realized our forbidden pet had crawled into the central vac tube. Shaking that tube frantically did nothing as far as getting him out, so Liisa panicked and decided if we just stuck the tube in the wall for a moment to get the suction going, we could get him closer to the end and grab him before mom and Conrad walked in the door. It worked. Harry the hamster got so close to the end of that tube that he wound up being sucked right into the main canister in the basement. We both choked back our horror when the parents walked in, and proceeded to make like we were wonderful little vacumers. That night, I slept in Liisas bed with her in the basement with horrible images burned into our minds of how that poor hamster met his maker.

Mailis and I were a match made in heaven. If there was trouble, we could find it. I fancy I was the main instigator, but Mailis was very curious, very brave, and had wide blue innocent eyes and a halo of blond hair to hide behind as Maija yelled at us (well, mainly me) for whatever she thought she had caught us doing. She didn't know the half of it. Mailis had brains and I had balls and we knew way more than anyone gave us credit for. I hate that Mailis wasn't part of my wedding party. She should have been wearing a golden dress and I had become so caught up in my own life, that it never occurred to me to ask her. I need to make a trip to Winnipeg and catch up with this woman, we have stories to share, stories to tell, and obviously, many more to make.

Today, I took my brood to the mall with me and bought the girls some fairy costumes. Complete with wings and a wand. I plan to photograph them at camp, but I couldn't resist letting them wear their beautiful new wings right out of the store and through the mall. They made quite a picture, each wearing "butterfry wings" and holding hands as they walked through the mall in matching outfits. All I could hear as I walked through that mall was a series of "awwww!!" "oh look!" and "OMG!" from the other shoppers. The girls were a hit, and of course, I was so proud. They didn't touch a single thing, followed me clear from one side of the mall to the other, and held hands the entire time. Personally, I am excited to see what kind of relationship these girls will have, and to share what kind of trouble they will get into over the years. Liisa and I used to pretend we were twins and get away with it. Now I have a set of my own to enjoy :)

Hayden is turning into the cutest baby ever. He rode right up front in the grocery cart today for the first time. He was so proud. He giggled and chatted almost the entire ride. He smiled at anyone who looked his way and giggled hysterically if I gave him a little tickle. He makes me laugh, and I am so excited to watch him go from baby to toddler to little boy. I have no expectation of what he will be like...he is kind of a mystery to me. I haven't really done boys. But I sure am glad to have the chance to experience parenting one.

And those are my thoughts for today. I should head to bed. Gnitey everyone....

Polly Lake Vintage Playground. Come on out. Its permanent.

I am not feeling particularly inspired to write tonight. So bear with me while I think of something to say...

Well, I suppose I could share our new Polly Lake Vintage Playground with you. We found this stuff from a fellow cottage owner who's grand babies had outgrown the desire to play on a playground and scooped it up before any neighbours even knew it was for sale. And the kids love it, and so does Ben.

It does needs some prettifying. We cant even decide what all of the animals are on the one piece....we have one that looks like an odd mixture between a cow and a pig, one that looks like a creepy eyeless ghost animal ( I think I may attempt to make it look like a horse...), an ugly dug, and an elephant. The entire unit spins around, and/or you can make it bounce. Its fun for the adults too. Trust me, we tried it and its a blast. Right next to riding the seadoo. Seriously. Either way, the girls scream "horsey" and run for it when they see it. If you ask them if they want down, they quickly shake their heads and say "Nooo". Olivia already has that "duuuuhhhh, as if we would want down" tone it her voice for accentuation. Makes you laugh, so we ask them often.

Hayden loves the family quad rides...either that or he thinks they are very boring. He lasts about 12 minutes in and then passes out. Once he is out, you can do almost anything you want to him, and he aint comin to.

I stayed at camp by myself from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday morning. I had to actually HANDWASH baby clothes. I am posting the pic as proof that I did it. How ladylike of me, dontcha think?

Ok, play my game with me please....

I can take criticism, and realize some memories of me, might not be the nicest. Sometimes the truth hurts. Hopefully one or two people have a fond memory of me.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn’t matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It’s actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I’ll assume you’re playing the game and I’ll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don’t want to play on your blog, or if you don’t have a blog, I’ll leave my memory of you in my comments.

So there you go. What do you remember about me (whether in real life or on-line since many people reading this live exclusively in my computer)?

This one is for you, Liisa :)

This one is totally off topic compared to my usual ranting and raving.

Pet peeves.

I struggle to understand how some horse people can be so utterly...ridiculous.

Have you ever seen the "Black Beauty" or "Black Stallion" movies?

They use every imaginable prop known to mankind. Horses do not fall in love with their human owners. They perceive us as the equine equivalent to "alpha mare, or stallion". Simple as that. No matter how much you want to believe that your horse trusts you or loves you or wants to be your friend, its simply...ridiculous. We, as horse owners, put our horses in the position of needing us to feed them, provide shelter, and meet their every need. Horses, out in the wild, do not need shoeing, 2 feet of shavings, pretty sparkly pink halters, or shaved bridle paths. Nor do they feel thankful that we provide them with these things. Their brain, is the size of a walnut.

I am completely sick of ridiculous people who insist that horses have the human capacity to love, to see humour, and to speak as though they are humans. They have simple needs. Food, water, shelter from the weather, and direction.

Sometimes, we need them. Humans have diverse needs. We want to feel loved, needed, respected, and important. If you want to believe that your horse has those feelings for you, please, feel free. Its true on some levels. Your horse does not LOVE you. He needs you to meet his basic needs and he has learned that in order to not feel discomfort he needs to do a couple of things. He needs to not buck your stupid ass off even if you deserve it. He needs food, so he lets you catch him from the pasture to bring him into the barn and FEED him. He needs to not feel your spurs prodding him from one side, so he moves over. He dislikes the feeling of pressure altogether, so he figures out if he yields to the pressure, you will just leave him the hell alone. He also enjoys when you scratch his itchy spots, so he rewards you with his pricked ears, heart shaped lip, and willingness to stay tied to a silly little lead or chain he could break in one second flat if he felt threatened on any level.

Stop watching those ridiculous movies and realize that if he is whinnying for you, he is hungry, if he follows you, its because he feels he has no other choice, and if he doesn't buck your sorry ass off, its because at some point in his life, he has accepted that you will likely just keep climbing back on until he is too exhausted to bother.

Gawd. I cant even make my point clear enough. My horse does not load onto the trailer because he loves going to horse shows and sweating his rear off because of his undying love for me. He has no other choice because I don't offer him one.

Next time you start to fantasize about drying your tears off on your horses neck while he placidly comforts you due to his love for you, realize that the stinky animal is simply putting up with your blubbering because he is in his happy place and has got a stall full of yummy hay he can tune you out with in front of him.

I do love horses. But reality is reality.

If you want to argue this point, please, I always enjoy a good argument and my comment box is wide open.

My baby boy

Our little man Hayden has not been an easy baby so far for us. He required bi weekly ultrasounds, weekly blood work, an early delivery, and spent his first 11 days very jaundiced in the NICU. But he has been very worth all of it.

He demands all attention in the room be on him at all times. For his first 4 months, he screamed pretty much all day long. If we wasn't sleeping, eating, or barfing, he was crying. Funny thing is you could always trick the cute little bugger into smiling long enough for a photo, so that people were convinced I just whine a lot. Just ask my mom about him. Between shuddering, she will support my claims.

Last few months have gotten a bit better. He is like a water fountain of baby barf, eternally nauseated by the smell of a clean shirt. The kid can curve barf. If you hold a receiving blanket close to his face, he can arc around the rag and nail you. And if he is particular about it, he can hit you with enough force that it will leak off your now soiled shirt and surely, soil your pants too. I keep cotton candy perfume in my truck as an attempt to mask the smell of baby puke I most certainly have on me.

But I have to give it to him, this kid is cute. He loves his mommy and can contort his body into almost any position in order to get a better look at me (as well as confirm that I am still in the room). He wants to be no more than an arm length away and has no qualms about using a very unpleasant screeching to ensure his world is as he wants it. Other woman can temporarily sedate him, but he really wants to nestle into his own mommies boosum. Suck my neck, yank my necklace, barf in my hair. He is all smiles for his mom. And I truly and genuinely TRY to hate that because it is a huge giant pain in my ass, but how can any woman refuse a male specimen with eyes and lips like that who genuinely has eyes for only herself. So give me some room to whine, but God, I love this kid :)

No.

The girls have began to use the word NO.

This marks the passage from babyhood to toddler hood like nothing else.

Ben thinks its the most hilarious thing to ask them if they want to "go night night?" and they veryquickly state "No. No night night.". So he asks them that a hundred times a day. And each time they respond he laughs. They take him seriously each and every time.

Last week at camp it was clear that Olivia had a stinky in her diaper. So I asked her if she went ca ca. Her eyes got huge and round and almost double their regular size and she said "no. mmm mmmm.". How do you not laugh? I asked her if she was sure and she just as quickly said "no.". At least she was honest for the second question, lol.

Svea is the bossy sister. You can hear her from the next room, "No Via, NO!". Olivia pretends not to hear her. She bosses Ivan too. He actually listens.

Oh, and yesterday Hayden learned to blow bubbles instead of swallow his food. Of course, they must always learn the blow instead of swallow trick when eating something green. My little brother learned to do it while I fed him green beans, Hayden while I fed him green peas. He carried on this morning to blow his rice cereal all over me. Svea told him "Hayen NO!". He didn't listen.

Oh yes, and before I go to bed, I must introduce the Svea Pam Anderson show..

I swear, my MOM put these in her shirt. I admit to having a bit of a fantasy of having bigger, nicer, higher, and firmer breasts (just like Della's) but were we not just talking about how unrealistic some fakies can really look?

Svea had her own opinions about it.





WHAT are these?





















Oh gawd...embarassing.
Please say no one is loooking.























"Ok, grow up. These
are dis-gus-ting. Ewww
just get-them-out."





















"Goodbye Pam boobie
number one.."























"You are some freaky
kinda people."

Out-of-control.

You know, I wonder sometimes how I can possibly keep my kids safe until they grow up, and how if I manage to do that I will be able to relinquish control of their safety to trust them to take care of themselves when they do.

Today they can reach something they couldn't reach yesterday. Know how I know that? Svea reached wayyyy up high and grabbed a brand new fillet knife off my counter the other day and I didn't know she had it until I heard her banging something around on things and became alarmed at the curious clang she was making. My heart fell into my arse as I frantically flew across the room at her so I could grab the sword she was wielding before the unthinkable happened. Imagine all the things that could have happened? What if she had fell, or poked one of her siblings with it, or what if what if what if?

I am a pretty paranoid mom, after all. I religiously keep my bathroom door closed, day and night. No face cloth in the tub. Door handle cover on the knob. I am scared-to-death of my kids getting in that tub and drowning before I know they are even in there. I consider myself a careful mother....but I am constantly reminded of how out of control some things really can be.

We have these log railings that are a bit too high from the actual stairs and the girls have figured out not only how to crawl under the railing, but also to move the chair I put in front to prevent them from doing it so they can do it anyways and get upstairs. So I generally close all the gates behind me. But this morning my kids disappeared while I was feeding the baby and I could suddenly hear a suspicious giggling closet door slamming partyfest in my bedroom. How odd. The gate was closed, after all.

I guess I am just saying that you can be the worlds most careful parent, and bad things can happen anyway. I am so scared of that. No one told me when I became a mother that I would spend half my time feeling guilty and the other half worrying myself wrinkly. And you know what? I wouldn't have believed them anyways.

Life is so complicated sometimes. Ahhhhh!

I included a few photos of my girls in the super cute bathing suits and hula skirts Della got the girls for their birthday. Its too dang cold for them to swim in them, so for now they are fun dress up outfits and the girls love them. And I love photographing them, so everyone is happy. And check out Hayden, how cute is he? (Svea turned her head for almost every pic...which explains why most of the pics are of her camera happy sister)

My Inspiration

Why is it that someone in this world has to experience such trauma before they can really know, I mean really and truly absolutely have any true concept of how "lucky" they are?

I keep coming back to this. I had no idea my life could be forever altered by becoming friends with and reading the blogs of woman who's loss and writings have truly touched me, my life, my perceptions, to the bottom-of-my-heart.

Sometimes I am in the middle of reading something particularly touching, particularly heartbreaking and I have to just close my computer and gather up what means the most to me and just hold them as close to me as a mother possibly can. Somehow life has taken on a bit of a different meaning to me. How lucky am I?

I am the luckiest woman alive.

I have goals and dreams and people in my world who will support me until they are met.

I have a husband I can rely on, respect, trust, and who I love from the very bottom of my heart.

I have three perfectly healthy, happy, beautiful and smart children who remind me every day of what beauty and love is really all about.

I have an outlet that calms my soul and is filled with friends who get that. Who make it what it is. Who make it why I love it so much.

I have some material things too....but nice as they are, they truly would be nothing without the things I listed above.

Just to mix things up...a sappy post to follow a silly one :)

(btw, there is no symbolic significance to what order these pics are in...I still cant figure out how to reorder them once they are loaded)

Bar hoppin momma

I am going to have to blame this on one Christine. She MADE me do it.

She took me on a girls night out. I innocently ordered and drank way more than I should of due to continual and relentless peer pressure.

My usual beauty routine consists of grabbing any nearby outfit and putting my air dried mass into a messy ponytail, and taking about 12 seconds to smear some crap on my face with a touch of mascara. But to go on a girls night out when unpracticed at attempting to look "hot", well, that takes a bit more time. But I did it. I managed to find one of those outfits in my closet of mom clothes that not only makes you look tall and skinny, but also makes you feel like a "hottie". Compliments of a bunch of hair extensions my husband would faint over if he knew how much I paid for them, and I was ready to be a bar barbie.

Like I said, all credit is due to Christine, who totally forced me to grab her ex boyfriends butt each time he would walk by. Christine forced me to tell all his friends that no man (one claimed he could, that's how it started) last longer than 15 minutes. IF I remember correctly, I clarified that intercourse timing does NOT start with foreplay and end with cuddling. I am talking about the actual..you know. Anyways, a man on booze will NOT admit to ever shooting his gun before at least an hour has gone by and I flat out told the men (the table was becoming oddly crowded with them) that they were full-of-shit. Thankfully, my wedding rings have created a large white indent on my otherwise tanned hands, so no one has to worry about what I said about my marital status. They all knew I was married. Oh yah, they knew. But I must say, most of them just frankly, don't give a damn. I say this all the time and truly believe in its wisdom..."flattery is flattery" , after all.

One kind Italian guy who was celebrating his most recent sons arrival frankly admitted (was that his name? LOL) that I was speaking the truth, and a truly "happy" guy does not take longer than 15 minutes to shoot his gun. Ha. I win.

I won until the day after. I got up at Christine's, forced back on the outfit that now seemed too tight and awfully uncomfortable and drove my sorry arse home. Turns out the motion created some motion sickness that lasted ALL DAMN DAY. My mom watched the kids so I could be pressured into the drinking and was now off duty. I resorted to carrying around a popcorn bucket to barf in each and every time I was forced to move. Granted, the kids gave me a great day, Olivia imitated my barfing and slapped my back (what support) and Svea gently rubbed my back and offered me kisses. Her breath....OMG...made me nauseous, but I already felt guilty enough being a total dead beat mom, so I had to kiss her back, but it is the thought that counts. Even Hayden was a champion yesterday.

Anyways, I survived my night out with the girls. I had a great time. I payed for it completely, and today is a new day.

So yah, thanks Christine (and Tara...so far I have left her out of this, but she is not nearly as innocent as she looks) for a good time and even better hangover.

Until next time....

A few more pics from Polly Lake

Potty talk

Gramma bought the girls a potty each yesterday. These ones are super cool because if you manage to get something in the potty, it sings you a lovely tune, a "reward", the box says. I didn't install that particular feature yet, as I thought it would be good just to let the girls see the potties, touch them, play with them, basically familiarize themselves with them. I have talked about potties with them a bit, and they happily sat on their potties fully clothed and had some mommy daughter potty talk while I did my own business on the big girl potty (tmi.).

Anyways, sometimes, if we all need it, I find its easiest to just have a family bath. I get all the kids undressed, then myself, and we all climb in together. Turns out as I started to strip Hayden down that he was FINALLY successful in his mission to have a decent poop and I needed wipes. So I grabbed the wipes from his room next to the bathroom. Came back and one of the girls had pooped on the floor. So I cheerfully picked it up and put it in the potty and let the girls watch me flush it down.

Anyways, after the bath the girls wanted to play on their potties before I managed to dress them. Fine, play away, after all, this is all about getting comfortable with using the potties, right? I dress baby while the girls play and as I come out of Hayden's room with him in my arms I notice both the girls laying belly down on the tile floor licking some sort of fluid on the floor. Hmmmm.....wanna take a guess at what that certain fluid was? Yah...pee. I scoop the girls up and try to use words appropriate to a toddler to explain why it was not ok to drink pee...but they were so excited about the pee that they listened while spreading it around the floor with their hands. At this point I realize I really need to get the offending pee off the floor and run for a towel...the toddler talk apparently was not helping, at-all. As I run to get the towel, I hear a loud thump and the offended Octave Olivia shriek. Olivia now had slipped in the pee and was laying on her back in it, screaming her head off. This kid now has pee on the front from drinking it, on her arms and hands from playing with it, and on her back from laying in it.

Back to the tub. Straight to bed. I am exhausted. Thanks for listening.

Before I lay me down to sleep

I pray the lord my soul to keep.

Today was a trying day. Hayden screetched his little lungs out for the entire car ride to Old Navy and for at least half the time I was in there trying to buy him some sweaters (due to the cold nothern summer we are experiencing). People were shooting me those sympathetic looks and taking them back as I strolled by grumbling about my baby for sale...eventually he might UNDERSTAND when I threaten to take him to CAS, but right now he DOES NOT. So shuttup. I am a single parent to three kids two and under...gimme a break. I sometimes have to hold my pee till my body takes it back, eat once my body is turning salmon pink from starvation and shower while my kids point out my body parts with a cool breeze blowing on my...forget it. Its that silly tmi thing again. You get-my-point.

Supper time entailed Svea having a complete and total meltdown because my water glass was too tall. Yah, she couldnt reach the straw. The waitress was a pretty blond idiot and the meal sucked and she practically outwardly grimaced at my request for a shorter glass so Svea the Screamer would zip it and be able to drink out of a shorter cup.

The threshold between the mall hallway and the Childrens Place proved to be too much for the girls to handle and when the high pitched whining started to crack the glass, Grandma the Great rescued mommy and took the girls pinwheel shopping so I could find some much needed clothes for the screaming baby I happily left at Christines house who so gallantly offered to save his life by taking him off my hands. Figuratively speaking of course....the baby is the light of my life, but is completly and totally OBSESSED with me and cant handle me being out of his reach for longer than half of a second.

Grandma got the girls a potty today. One each. She spoils them and I am happy for it. Now, when they point out my body parts and talk about the potty while I pee, I can return the favour. I guess I better go get some pull ups. These potties SING when you pee in them. I am tempted to start using them myself. Only if someone else would clean them out though (Grandma??)

I should go to bed. Della told me why we use the term "I have to pee like a racehorse" but I dont remember already...LOL. Can you please remind me? Cuz I need to right now.

Gnitey everyone. Tommorow is a newwww day.

I love my kids AND my tied tubes :)

By golly, its Polly under all that RAIN

We just came home from a week at our pretty new camp. We love it. Love it love it. The kids love it too. Unfortunately, this year it just rains, rains, rains and rains. So we are making the very best of the sunny (and not so sunny) moments as best we can.

This weekend we had a crew out. It was super fun playing trailer park boys. We balanced a rye and coke in one hand, the kids in the other, battled gusting awning rip off worthy winds, ignored the cats and dogs falling out of the sky and just had a blast, despite mother nature (whom I am pretty sure, has a real bad AF so far this summer. Period. Why complain? There were sunny moments, after all.

Summer always brings with it, some nostalgia...and I found myself remembering my cousin Mailis and I enjoying whatever weather was thrown at us at camp. Whats a little rain when you are playing in the water anyways right? The kids at our cottage this weekend had just that attitude. What weather? Straight from the Sauna to the lake. Like a little rain should even put a cloud over their sunny little world of rainbows and candy. I miss that. The difference was that those kids had on some clothes...I don't think Mailis and I bothered with those too much. After all, we do have some Finn blood coursing through our veins. Speaking of which, I showed off my heritage as Ben gasped and laughed out loud when I threw caution to the wind, ignored the fact that we are sadly short on tree coverage on one side of our property, and did the real Finn Sauna lake run. I was super modest about it though. I ran WITH a towel on from sauna to lake, dropped the offending towel and ran on in, jiggly butt bared to all who happened to be watching and had my skinny dip. The frontal view was likely more shocking than the rear view, being that the front bears the oranges in socks, world map, and newly acquired summer time beer belly. But you know what? Suck it up buttercup. Its my camp and I will swim naked if I want to.

On a different note, Ben and I got the super best deal on some old playground equipment that we plan to pick up in a few weeks and set up at camp. The good old stuff. Like the kind we all used to play on as kids. Cant wait to get it!

Mission Accomplished

The Vagina Monologue convo with Val (she's so bad)

















oops same one


























Liisa showing Jag in showmanship


Mom and I negotiated to make the Dryden QH Show about having fun. And we did. My darling sister arrived with Kaidi, Kathy, and Migwin and I felt like Dale Earnhardt Jr. with his entire pit crew.





We decided that the Jag actually performs BETTER if I just never bother to ride him with the exception of the week before the show. Or it could have been sheer exhaustion. He was for the most part, a very good boy. We won some ribbons and he outperformed himself, proving his ability to cross over from Mr. English since I am so tall to Mr. Western since I can move my legs so slow.





The kids were AMAZING. We brought an outdoor carpet along and it was almost as effective as electric fence (NOT that we have tried that) for keeping the kids inside its boundaries. The girls gleefully shouted HORSEY and whinnied, and Hayden sat in his excersaucer (drooling in only his diaper...) with a smile on his now TWO toothed little grin!





Val and I discussed the Vagina Monologues in great detail, we covered hedgehogs and undergarments, blisters and remedies, drank beer and just generally hung it all out. I mean for me, I genuinely mean, allll out. I think Melanie's dad was afraid to walk to her trailer as walking by mine was like some kind of strip show from Vegas with all the sequins, rhinestones, and leather flashing on over there (and supposedly, the umm...undergarment thing may have been at least slightly shocking as well). If so, ummm....seriously sorry over here. snort snort giggle giggle.





I am entirely exhausted. I had a great weekend. We won a couple of western pleasure classes, and took home some points in showmanship and hunter under saddle as well. I got no blisters, hangovers, or black eyes. Someone STOLE every dang thing I had in the barns when we went for dinner including my freaken wheelbarrow (who seriously steals wheelbarrows??).....without that little problem, it was a wonderful weekend.





Thanks guys :)





See you in Emo

Kaija's theory.

Men can be soooo dumb.

Horse people can be soooo stubborn. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink. The trick is in learning to convince him that he WANTS a drink, backing off, and then telling him what a good boy he is when he tells you he is thirsty. Then he rolls his eyes around, bats his eyelashes, cuddles up to you, states his undying love for you, and gives you what you wanted to start with.

Ha. Mission accomplished.

I am off to Dryden to show my horse for the weekend. Sans the husband. See you when I get back :)

What was I thinking?

I dunno. I like to refuse to let the world slow me down and to have at least a slight tendency to laugh in the face of adversity. Or it laughs at me. Probably a bit of both. I mean really, I have barely swung my leg over that beasts back over the last month and a half, just returned from a fly in fishing "Call of the wild" style trip, and have three little charges creating havoc in my home. Why wouldn't I decide to pack not only those three little angels, but also two horses into my new(er) 3 horse slant load weekender package edition trailer and head out of town for a horse show with no man to save me if I get a flat or...whatever...? We decided that although its great that the new horse trailer has a bed and a microwave, we simply don't feel ready to grin and bear the effects of an entire weekend of camping out in cramped quarters with three kids, so we are staying at a Best Western with a pool. There is a light at the end of the tunnel (Thanks, Val).

So you should see the trailer. Don't open the door I tell ya. Its packed with enough gear to take the Adams family on a week long cruise in the Caribbean (I think I am distantly related...can I come too?). And you know what? Two days aint enough time to get it done. I have the support of wonderful friends and family and I couldn't do these things without that help. Thank you Della for taking a layer off of Jag for me, Mom for being these kids backup mom, and Don for getting rid of the two week high pile of nasty stinky garbage from my garage. And thank you to Shelley, btw, for watching the rug rats so we could do that Call of the Wild vacation too!

Every once in awhile these kids take pity on me. I think last night was one of those nights. They all slept in until 9:00 this morning! Yay. I needed the sleep and finally got a good one last night.

I got so much done yesterday. All I gotta do today is pack all my normal clothes, the kids clothes, diapers, baby food, hats, sunblock, the rest of my horsey laundry, iron my English blouses, ride my horses, clip Fuji's back legs, tidy up the house, do several loads of laundry, squeeze in a shower, wash the truck and hook up the trailer. No problem. I got twice that done yesterday. Next weekend I am at camp with a beer in my hand, no Crown Royal or horses anywhere to be seen and I plan to spend the entire time in my bathing suit. If you want a piece of me, too bad. I am handing the kids over to my husband and playing dead beat mom for at least the entire weekend. Ha. I wish. But after 8 the world is mine. I love those mints and now I know why :)