It's a flood!

My Girl walks into the bathroom (while I'm "busy") and asks...

"Mommy, can I play in the water?"

Where I ask, and she points the window (she means in the backyard). I have visions of her running naked in the backyard and it's only in the 50s.

"No, but you can play in the sink."

She smiles & skips out to go to her bathroom "Okay, thanks Mommy!"

A few minutes later (or so it seemed) and My Man is yelling from said bathroom. Apparently she plugged the drain, put the water on full blast, put her toys on the toilet...and then decided to watch television in the living room.

Meanwhile, the sink overflowed, ran onto the floor, leaked down the wall into the downstairs bathroom...just as My Man had primed the wall for repainting.

I would've taken a photo to post with this blog...but My Man would not have understood. Needless to say, we'll need to caulk the floor and re-prime the wall down stairs.

Moral of the story - maybe playing with water in the backyard in 50 degree weather isn't such a bad idea!

Two Whole Hours

I'm always running late and today was no different. My Boy had a birthday party to go to in late afternoon. But we also had a lot to do this weekend.

We'd spent the day (well, the latter half of the day since I started the day with a migrane) preparing to paint the basement "apartment" (2 bedrooms, bathroom, hallway and small kitchen). When it was time to get moving to the party I rushed to get changed and ran out the door without my cell phone.

So we show up at the party location (LaserQuest) and I drop off the boy (I love it when kids get old enough to go to parties without you!) and return to my car. I realized, without a phone, how will I keep track of time? I haven't worn a watch in years (not that I don't want to - just never got around to getting the watchband fixed).

So rather than go shopping (I can't afford to shop anyway) and rather than drive all the way home - to just turn around & come back - I decide to just sit in the car. I did bring a book. How often do you get uninterrupted time to just relax and read? I'm the kind of person that enjoys waiting in doctor waiting rooms - because it gives me a chance to read w/out any interruptions (that is until the durn doctor calls me in! LOL).

So I read my book for two hours. I'm reading New Moon and whenever I read at home I get "looks" from My Man like I should feel guilty for reading. It really bugs me that I somehow found someone to share my life with that does not like to read. It actually annoys him that I enjoy reading. He just feels that I should be doing something more constructive. So knowing this, can you imagine what 2 whole hours of uninterrupted reading time can be like? It was like h.e.a.v.e.n! :o)

Did you hear the one about...

"Mom, did I tell you the joke about the 3 guys that wanted to be something else?"

"No, I don't think so."

"okay, there's these three guys that wanted to be something else, so they went to top of a cliff...

"The first guy wants to be an eagle so he shouts EAGLE and jumps...

and he turns into an eagle and flies away."

"the next guy does the same, he shouts HAWK and jumps...

he turns into a hawk and flies away."

"the third guy goes to jump and trips on a tree branch..."

(wait for it...)

"and shouts "oh poopy" and then turns in to poopy."

"LOL, that is very funny bud!"

His jokes are getting much better! :o)

"The" Talk

Our regular bedtime routine always includes "cuddle time". This is when stories are over, the lights are out, the kids are tucked in and we lay down with them to talk about their day or to just lie quietly for a few minutes.

My Boy almost immediately started this conversation last night.

"Can boys have babies?"

"No, only girls can have babies in their tummies" I reply (nevermind it's "boys" and "girls" instead of "men" and "women").

"Remember when you told me that some boys want to marry boys?" he asks.

"Yes?" I wonder where this is going...

"So how do they have babies?" he inquires.

"If they want a baby, they would need to adopt" I tell him.

"And some girls want to marry girls?" he continues.

"Yes, and if they want to have a baby they would need to adopt or...." hmmm, how do I put this? "...or get a donation from a man." Oh boy, how far will this go?

"...a donation of what?" he asks.

"...well, you see, men have sperm inside them and women have eggs inside them. And when sperm gets with the egg, it turns into a baby." I'm thinking, thank goodness it's dark in here and he can't see my nervous smile and freaked out look.

He thinks about this.... "and where is the sperm?"

"The sperm is in.... in the scrotum which is that stuff that is below your penis..." I'm wondering now, does he have that? Isn't there some thing about boys "dropping" or something when they hit puberty? I didn't have to think about this for very long...

"hmmm, I wondered what that was" he responds. "And how does the sperm get to the egg?"

Oy! "well, when a man and a woman get married and want to have a baby...they um...have sex and when they make love the sperm comes out his penis and gets into the woman." whew, please don't ask me to explain HOW it gets in the woman...please don't ask, please don't ask....

instead he asks.... "and how does sperm get out of the penis?"

hmmm.....

"you know, that's a really good a question...and I'm not exactly sure how to explain that. maybe we should get a book at the library." whew!

"okay, that sounds like a good idea."

"sweetie, you can ask me anything you want to know...anytime"

At this point the subject changes and I'm off the hook.

And as I was thinking of this conversation and couldn't help but wondering - where on earth did this conversation come from? I know he's 8.5 yrs old so it's bound to come out eventually...but why tonight? After thinking about it I remember that we were watching Dirty Jobs on the Discovery channel. Oh right, thanks Mike Rowe for showing us how to castrate baby lambs tonight...that lead to the question of "what is castration" and I'm sure that had something to do with this! LOL

Grown-Up Vacation - Day 3

Our last day started by snoozing in (no kids to wake us up!!) and then walking next door for brunch and the crew meeting. Helle laid out a great spread for us....

And then it was time for the crew meeting. Everyone gathered on the back porch as the a storm moved in. While the crew (that was still in FL) spent hours planning and discussing the coming race year, I lounged in the living room reading a book. After the meeting My Man and I went with some friends to have lunch. The weather wasn't nearly as nice on Sunday as the the days before. It was cool, windy and rainy.

We left for the airport in the late afternoon and caught our flight. We made good time...until we arrived at O'Hare. We spent 1 hour and 45 minutes sitting on the tarmac waiting to get into the gate. Suprisingly, all of my fellow travelers and me were very understanding about the delays - there were some pretty big winter storms on the East Coast causing delays. However, once we FINALLY got into a gate, our patience was awarded with major annoyance. We expected to be sitting on the tarmac for a long time because the terminals would be full of travelers. But imagine our suprise that the terminal was practically empty! None of us (even the pilot complained) could believe they left us sitting out there all that time when there were so many empty gates.

Overall - it was great to get away without the kids - I highly recommend it! And they had a great time too staying at home without us. We look forward to doing this again next year!

Grown-Up Vacation - Day 2

On day two we got up - had breakfast and then drove south to __ to go for an airboat ride. Now I've never done this before - and always wondered what it would be like. Want to know? It's loud. And bumpy (at times). It's also a lot of fun. I wonder if it would've been scary during alligator season (summer)?

Mike, My Man & Me were in one boat & the others had to go in a different boat. I took a lot of photos of trees with wicked branches..and then afterwards we went to lunch and I took pictures of birds! (see the big fat pelican?)

To get to & from this ride we had to drive down Alligator Alley (again, not in season so we didn't get to see any). This highway is also a panther sanctuary so there were panther crossing signs! Of course, didn't see any of those either - but it was cool to see the signs.

Once we were back at the house it was time for more team building activities. Again, it was the red team vs the purple team (go red!).

The first game (the name of which I can not remember) involved throwing two golf balls attached to each other w/ a string at a PVC pipe frame. You can only throw holding onto one ball and the goal is to wrap them around the frame as many times as possible. Or in some cases, just get the durn things to land on the frame!

I was pleased as (spiked) punch to take 3rd place for the most points! And, of course, red won, again. :o)

Our third and final team building exercise was to transfer as much water as possible from one bucket to the other using two PVC pipes with strategically placed holes in them. But we couldn't use anything but our team members hands and the pipes. Of course our fearless leader (Helle) later told us we could've gotten creative & shoved a shirt or something in the pipe (we all swear she told us to ONLY use our hands!). This time the purple team won.

By the end of the evening prizes were given, stories were told and each crew was honored with an award for their dedication to the Can Can Duex.

Overall, Saturday was a much tamer evening than Friday - I think we're all getting to old for this! LOL

Grown-Up Vacation - Day 1

My Man is a sailor and that means many weekends during the summer are spent racing on Can Can Duex. What does that mean exactly? It means many weekends alone with my kids. Which on one hand can be fun...and other times, pure torture.

So I consider this racing hobby of his to be his "summer job". Without this summer job we wouldn't have our "excuse" to go on little vacations (5 days on Macinac Island, a weekend in Michigan, etc.). So in all of our years together, I tolerate his weekend job.

Last year we were invited to the first (annual) Can Can Duex crew party at Captain Clem's house in Florida. But we couldn't go (because the kids were not invited and we couldn't get a sitter). But this year is a different story! So we got to go to the 2nd annual crew party...and we left at 6AM, Friday, February 27. We were the last ones to arrive.

We flew into Fort Myers and a taxi picked us up to take us to Ft Myers Beach where the Holiday was docked (& everyone else was already on the beach). We hit the beach and had lunch and met up with the rest of the crew.

Since everyone already had at least a day of drinking on us - we started right away. By the time we were ready to head back to Cape Coral we were ready to party. The boat ride back home was fun - we saw dolphins off our bow and there was a rumor of manatees (but we didn't see any of those).


When we got back to the Sands Blvd Inn (Capt Clem & Helle's house) we saw the 300 lb ice luge waiting for us. If you've never experienced an ice luge..then you are missing out! But this wasn't just any ordinary drinking game - this was a team building exercise (remember, this is a CREW party!). First, you take your shots on the luge, then you run up the hill to the side yard & have to lasso a post. And EVERYONE was doing this! We were split into two teams - the red team & the purple team - spouses on separate teams (I'm on the red & My Man on the purple).

I did pretty good on my practice toss - but after my shot on the luge & running up the hill to do the lasso - I was too far gone. So after my 3 trys (or did we get 5?) I hadn't completed a single toss. I think Capt. Clem made it on his first try!

This game went well into the evening so the only left to do after this was drink, eat, drink, drink and pass out (which is what My Man...and others...did).

It was great to have an entire day & evening where we didn't have any kids relying on us for anything - no one following us around asking for stuff, able to use the bathroom alone (you know what I mean if you're a parent!). Meanwhile, my kids were home with a sitter having a fabulous time - so much though that they didn't really even want to talk to me when I called to check in.

Tune in tomorrow for day two!