A Pit of Snakes...

A pit of snakes..... Yes, a PIT of snakes!

I have a river behind my house and also some wet lands to the side of it. So we get water snakes. Today all the kids in the neighborhood were out searching for snakes. My neighbors have an unfinished backyard. There is this area with a retaining wall built up around it and a section of it is dug out. The kids put all 16 snakes in the pit.

They were so gross. I hate snakes. The mother of the house where the snakes were put was so upset about it. She was totally creeped out. I was just thankful they weren't at my house!

My New Years Resolution (better late than never...)

I have finally come up with a New Year's resolution. I have decided to change out everything in my wardrobe that does not contain spandex in some way. I am switching out all of my jeans to elastic waist pants. I don't care if people think I look like a grandma. I don't care if people think I am a sloppy woman because I will be wearing nothing but tee shirts. I don't care if people look at me funny because I will be wearing stretchy biker type shorts all summer long. I don't care what people think. My resolution is to be comfortable!

Look out elastic waist pants....... Here I come!

Maple Mountain Dance Competition

Sidney had a dance competition yesterday. Her team took first place in one dance and third place in their second dance. Her dance company took high point which means they placed first overall.

The girls hate these costumes and I think they are so cute. I love the colors. The look great on stage.

This is the dance that they placed first in.

Sidney is on the far left in both pictures.

Triple Crown Tournament

Jens' baseball team had a tournament in Phoenix this past weekend. We left on Wednesday and came back home on Sunday. It was a horribly long car ride! Molly only got carsick once. She puked two times and was fine the rest of the time. She is my little carsick girl. I always have a cup or a bag of some kind at all times!

We played our first two games on Friday. We played two teams, both from California and funny enough, they were both called Longhorns. We lost to both teams! Must have been something to do with the name....... or the state!

On Saturday we played our first game against a team from Texas called Pro Source Athletics. It was a long hard game. We played 9 innings and finally ended up beating them and went to play the rest of our games at the Big League Dreams Park.

The Big League Dreams Park was really cool! I liked it just as much, if not more than Cooperstown Dreams Park in New York

All the fields were replicas of major league fields. There was an Angel Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and several others.

We played on Sportsman's Park which is where the Cardinals play.

We played a team called the Vandals from Arizona.

This kid was sliding back to first base. Colton caught the ball and dove after him and got him out. It was a great play.

Jens hitting a hard ball to center field.

We beat the Vandals and played our third game of the day against a team from Pasadena, California called Play Hard. (dumb name huh!)

I know this picture is terribly blurry but this was a great catch! Jens caught a line drive to first to get an out.

Our boys were simply exhausted from the long day and we ended up losing to Play Hard. This was a single elimination tournament so we were out but our boys played great!

We were able to visit our great friends Mark and Allison while we were there. Sidney and Cade stayed with them instead of the hotel. Their house was much cooler!!! Our kids played together everyday and they loved it.

On our last night there, Cade stayed with us at the hotel. We had been at HOT ballparks all day and we were all exhausted. Cade fell into bed! He was so tired. I looked down at his feet and about died! They were FILTHY!

On our way down, Jeff was in some kind of mad rush to get there. We were lucky to have bathroom and food breaks on our 11 hour car ride. We drove over Hoover Dam. I have never seen it and he didn't stop! We flew over the bridge at about 87 miles an hour. I hardly even realized where we were before it was gone. I was so mad. Then we drove through this really neat Joshua Tree National Forrest. Bazillions of Joshua Trees! They were so cool! He wouldn't stop. I was so mad. Then we went through this place with MILLIONS of huge cactus's all over. Again he wouldn't stop and again, I was so mad! So on our way home, I drove! We took a different route so our scenery was different but by dang I was going to get some pictures!!! These are the type of cactus's that we saw on our way out but they were few and far between compared to the other place.

The red rock was so neat.

The desert really is pretty.

We drove over this bridge called Navajo Bridge. The bridge pictured is the one you drive over and then there is another one for you to walk out on. It is 467 feet above the water. We were so high! Can you see that white speck on the left side of the bridge? That is a car driving along the bridge. It gives you an idea of how big and how high this bridge was.

Jeff was so irritated with me stopping. He said he was allotting us 5 minutes to see the place!!! Turned out to be more like 3 minutes on the bridge and 3 minutes in the bathroom. And then he wanted back on the road!

Then he refused to let me drive anymore!

So sadly, the pictures stop here. But it was a great trip!

(*Note to self: Never Ever take a road trip with husband)

What to do about Jens........

My oldest son Jens is one of the sweetest kids you will ever meet. He is thoughtful, considerate of others, mature WAY beyond his years and he LOVES donuts!

However, he is also the messiest child I have ever known! He is a huge procrastinator and hates to clean his room. For a couple of days I have been telling him to go and clean it. He will slump his shoulders, drop his head and say, "FINE!". Then he saunters off downstairs to "clean". Well today I went down there and actually walked inside of his room, as opposed to just walking by. Here is what I found. Keep in mind that he has been spending an hour or so a day supposedly cleaning this pig pen.

His bed is neatly made............. with piles and piles of crap on top of it. No wonder he has been wanting to sleep upstairs with Cade. I thought maybe it was too cold down there or something. Oh no, it has been because he physically can not get into the bed without work.

He has his BB gun laying out on his bed. A big NO NO in my house. It is supposed to be locked in the safe. He has his Boy Scout merit badge papers all over the floor from his Pow Wow on Saturday. His garbage has thrown it's self up all over the floor. And do you see the shirts in plastic sticking out from under his bed? Yeah, that's his dry cleaning!!!!!!

He has more hats and jackets hanging on his bed posts than I care to count.

He has so much CLEAN laundry laying on the floor that he can't even close his closet doors. Not to mention the clean laundry (that he was too lazy to hang up) that he has stuffed onto his closet shelves.

My friend Jamie said that she makes her boys give her one hour of work for every day that their room is messy. I thought that was a GREAT idea! So I closed his bedroom door and I made a little "NOTICE" sign and hung it on his door.

I love my Jensy but I know better. This sign will help, but I am sure that I can look forward to lots and lots and lots of extra housework out of him.

5th Grade Science Fair

Sidney had her science fair yesterday and today. My mother in law had sent me an email a long time ago about a science fair project about microwaved water. Two identical plants were purchased on the same day. Each one was given the same amount of sunlight. The only difference between the two was in the watering. We took equal parts of water. One part was boiled on the stove and the other part was boiled in a microwave safe container in the microwave. We watered the plants with the water after it had cooled completely. In the email, the microwaved water plant was totally dead within 9 days. We watered our plants for a month and nothing happened. So we really didn't get the neat effect we were hoping for but at least I can feel fine about using my microwave. (not like I would have quit using it anyway!!!)

Sidney with some of her BFF's: Gracie and Hannah

Cade's Disneyland Trip

Jeff is always away traveling somewhere for his work it seems like. So to make it a little funner for the kids, he occasionally takes one of them with him if he is going to be somewhere stateside. This time it was Cade's turn. Jeff had some business in Anaheim, CA so he decided to take Cade along and spend a day at Disneyland. He told Cade about the trip 2 days before they were supposed to leave and he was SO excited that he could hardly wait the two days.

He went swimming everyday. The first week in March is not too warm yet, even for California but it sure felt warm enough to them coming from snow. So they had the pool to themselves.

Disneyland was so empty. They went on Pirates of the Caribbean 3 times in a row without even getting off because no one was in line. No lines at the Haunted Mansion, Tea Cups, Tower of Terror, Grizzly Rapids, hardly anywhere. The longest they waited anywhere was about 20 minutes.

DINNER! Compliments of Jeff!

He loved being able to drive in Autotopia.

He had such a great time! He can't hardly wait until his turn rolls around again.