Had a fun day today.  First off, we went to the beach with a bunch of friends and had a sand castle building contest.  There were some pretty elaborate structures produced.  WE went off on his own and made sand versions of both the Washington Monument and the Collisium in Rome.  The winner was a  combination sea turtle/castle.  But, the most exciting one was made by Brandon and his girlfriend, Mindy.  We couldn't figure out what he was making.  It was a big sand circle with an odd shape at the top.  We figured out it was an engagement ring when he wrote the words "Mindy, will you marry me?" in the middle of it.  Isn't that just the sweetest thing ever?  We were all happy to see her write the word "YES" in the sand under it.

After we all got sunburned at the beach (even I got pink in spots) we headed home and an hour later we dashed out again for the parade downtown.  It started raining right before the city lit off the fireworks, so, though they were beautiful, the rain made them go out  much quicker than they normally would.  The rain is also putting a damper on the regular fireworks.  I imagine everyone will light them off tomorrow night to make up for it.

Every year on the 4th of July, 2 things happen.  I get John Mellencamp's song Justice and Independence stuck in my head and our family talks about the year of the neighbor annilliator.  Friends of ours from Wisconsin absolutely LIVED for July 4th fireworks.  They spent hundreds of dollars on the things and lit them off over the lake at their house.  We'd get our lawnchairs out and watch the show.  I'm not a big fan of fireworks, last night I was showing kids pictures of hands with the fingers blown off because of fireworks, hoping they'd reconsider the whole exploding thing.  But, fireworks are guy things and I think they make them feel manly or something.  I just don't get it.  Anyway, one year we were watching the equivilent of a week's pay getting blown up in our friend's backyard when one of the launchers fell over and shot fireworks right into the neighbors yard where they were having a party.  We laugh about it now, but when it happened, everyone fell pretty bad.  One lady even got burned a bit.  It did serve one purpose though, they cut back on the fireworks in the future and were much more careful about shooting the stupid things off.  It also made the neighbors move their  party inside. 

WE has discovered a can of WD-40 and is now oiling everything in sight.  Our door hinges, desk drawers, skateboard wheels and anything else unable to get out of his way is getting a heaving coating of oil.  He just WD-40'd the dog, I kid you not.  Ol' Jake's arthritis shouldn't be giving him any problems for a while.

I had a coffee date with a friend today.  She's the one I usually have my Tuesday coffee meets with, but we've both been gone lately and haven't met up since the beginning of June, so we decided we'd better get our Starbucks while we can.  We met up at 8:30, got to gabbing and finally left Starbucks at 11:45.  Hey, we had a lot to catch up on.

I've decided we've got too much stuff in our house.  I'm happiest when I have a minimal amount of stuff.  I'm going to craigs list some furniture that is just taking up space here.  I'm going to package up books and see if I can sell them off to the book resale place.  I"m also thinking of dismantling our photo albums and just puting the pictures in boxes labeled with the years.  We practically never look at the albums, but they're taking up a lot of bookshelf space.  I'd much rather find a place to store a couple boxes than a dozen photo albums.  Thank goodness we're not the kind of people who take tons of pictures, or I'd really have a job in front of me.  But, those tasks are for next week.  Tomorrow, I'm focusing on going to the beach with a bunch of friends and having a 4th of July party.

 

The other day, the glass pot for the coffee maker broke.  We don't have a spare, but that didn't stop super hubby from getting his caffine fix.  He's now using a cereal bowl, set on the warming plate, as his carafe.  Necessity is the mother of invention and all that good stuff.

I brought WE into the doctor today for an ear infection.  While we were there, the Dr asked if there was anything else wrong with him and WE told him about his hurt foot.   Remember that one?  He still occasionally wanders around with crutches.  The Dr asked him what happened and WE had to tell him it was from jumping off the roof.  The Dr looks at me and I just shrug.  What ya gonna say?  He checked it and said it's just sprained and he should ice it and take it easy for a couple days - easier said than done.

#4's cat, Kai, has been missing for a couple of days now.  She and #2 are going to start going door to door tomorrow to see if anyone has seen him or possibly adopted her for their own.

Another volcano vent opened up yesterday and the VOG is getting worse than ever around here.  I'm hoping to see the sun again some day, but I"m not holding my breath.

#4 talked hubby into taking her to work with him today.  Not a big deal, since he spent most of the day working in the office.  She set up shop in the mostly unused leg of my "U" shaped desk and kept herself busy using the paper punch and ink stamps.  She also found an unused phone and took imaginary messages.

Also going on in the office was the inaugeral use of the recording studio also set up in our office space.  Our friend Charles is a Grammy award winning musician and he set the studio up.  They were laying some demo tracks this afternoon with another musician aquaintence, Leon, doing some singing.  Here's Leon:  http://www.hawaiianmusicstore.com/cds/cd685.html     It sounded great.  I can't wait for the first cd to come out of the new studio.

#2 has spend all of the evening adding up how much money she's going to need over the course of her lifetime.  She's planning on being a horse trainer, so she's factoring in the cost of all the horse equipment she'll need in addition to her schooling and to buy a  house.  #4 is planning on living with her when she gets out of high school, so she's helping her with her figuring.  They're planning on living in Texas, so they're asking me how much water and electricity cost per year there.  Like I would have any clue.  All I know is that utilities in Hawaii are some of the most expensive in the country, so it's bound to be cheaper than what we're paying now.  Since all their numbers are going to be out of date by the time they're actually old enough to move away, I don't know why they're working so hard.  But, they're having fun doing it, and that's all that matters.

I hadn't been to the office since last Tuesday morning so I had a ton of catch-up work to do.  It all just sort of added up until I had little piles all over my desk, mainly of little receipt papers from Lowes and Home Depot.  Once everyone was in their respective piles, it was just a matter of entering them into the computer, but just when I'd think I had a grasp on it all, I found another pile of receipt lying on a desk somewhere.  I think my head's above water again now.  Tomorrow I should only have a couple hours work and I'll be all caught up again.  Then, of course, I won't go in until next Monday and the insanity will start all over again.     It's not so bad though, I get a sense of satisfaction in setting things in order.  Kind of like playing solitaire - it's so nice to have everything in nice tidy little rows, it's the same with the office paperwork.  I feel so good when everything's entered and filed away where it belongs.  Some people enjoy creating chaos, other enjoy setting it back in order. 

Sissy, I've already read #14.  I was on the ball this time and got myself on the library waiting list right away and managed to be the first one to get to read the book.  Yay me!  In true daydreamer fashion, I finished it in one day, but was a bit disappointed.  I think she's lost her Stephanie mojo and the books are losing their momentum.  There wasn't one bit of tasty Ranger or Morelli in the entire book, imo.  Mooner played a major part though, and the scenes he was in were the only funny part in the whole book.  I think #15 will probably be the last in the series.

It's been awhile again, but mainly because I just plain old forgot to make entrys.  Yeah, I'm a slacker.  Mainly though, nothing's really happened for me to write about. 

I fixed the screen in the patio door in our bedroom.  Our cat had trashed it while we were on vacation and there was a big hole in it.  So, I got the supplied and replaced it all by myself.  I'm not very talented when it comes to home repair projects, I usually start them, get stuck about half way through, then have to call in reinforcements to finish it.  But, I'm happy to say, I replaced the whole thing without any assistence.  yay me!

The boys are now trying to be mimes.  Hubby and I are telling them they'll have to practice...a lot.  I think a few days of them practicing to be absolutely silent would be wonderful.

WE forgot to use the crutches for most of the day today, so I think his broken foot is healing nicely.  Which is nice, since whenever he forgot that his foot was broken, he'd leave the crutches someplace where I was sure to trip over the stupid things.

Other than WE's miracle recovery, the day was pretty quiet.  I got some writing done, which was nice, since I'd been a major slacker in that department lately.  Hopefully, I'll have Moxie to the Rescue ready to ship out to my publisher by July 7th.  That's the goal anyway.

WE is postive he broke his foot.  Since he can walk on it, I find it highly unlikely.  He's hobbling around on crutches when he thinks of it, other times he walks around normally.  Right now, he's using the crutches while he's got a laundry hamper over his head...he claims he depressed.  We were supposed to be cat sitting for some friends while they're on vacation, and they told us we could keep the cat if we wanted it.  WE had decided the cat was going to be his.  Now the friends have decided to keep the cat at their house and have their daughter take care of it and poor WE's in a funk.  I'm not though, since the two cats we have are big enough pains and I really see no point in bringing a 3rd one into the mix.  In the meantime, I just hope WE doesn't run into anything while wearing the laundry hamper.

WE and our neighbor, Mark, have an ongoing battle.  Mark is #4's friend Maddie's Dad.  Well, today, WE rigged up a bucket on a string and put it on the roof right where Mark stands when he comes over to visit.  He trailed the string into the house and was planning on yanking it to bring down the bucket of water onto Mark's head.  Then We sent #4 and Maddie over to get Mark.  Eventually, Mark came over with a basket of mangoes for us from the mango tree in his yard.  He stood in the right spot, WE yanked the string and the string broke.  Mark just stood there and continued talking and WE secretly sent #1 onto the roof to dump the bucket manually.  As #1 came over the top of the roof to do the deed, Mark suddenly dumped the basket of mangos, revealing the water balloons he had hidden under them.  He started chucking the balloons at #1 and WE ran out of the house with glasses of water to throw at Mark.  It was crazy.  Turned out #4 and Maddie had narced WE out to Mark, which is why he came armed with the balloons.  WE is now referring to his sister as "The Betrayer".  Life around here sure stays interesting.

Today was the day we did our vacation catch up.  I went into work and got all of last week's mail sorted and computerized.  The boys trimmed the bushes in the yard and the girls did some laundry.  Things are pretty much back to normal here now.

I got my very first royalty check today for my books.  It wasn't a huge amount, but enough to put a smile on my face.  Imagine, doing something you love (in my case, writing) AND getting paid for it.  Ain't life grand?

Had some bad news in the hair department today.  I found lice on #2.  Now I've got two kids doing the cootie shampoo thing.  I don't think those blasted bugs will ever go away.  Makes me just want to shave everyone down to the scalp and start over fresh.  If the boys get them, they are getting short short haircuts, I can tell you that much.

Sorry I haven't updated, but there's a reason.  Isn't there always?    Thursday morning the internet at the house was out and still wasn't working when we left Friday morning.  This made things a bit of a challenge since we were going to spend Friday and Saturday on Oahu and we hadn't gotten a rental car or hotel yet.  We'd been planning on doing that on Thursday.  Nothing like waiting til the last minute, eh?  So we got into the airport in Honolulu and had to search for an available rental car.  This is difficult on a Friday, things get busy there on the weekends.  We finally got a car, then went in search of a hotel room, another challenge.  Finally, after arriving at 11:30, by 3:00 we were settled in at a hotel near Waikiki.  We wandered the streets that night, which is rather interesting.  I don't know how street performers in other big cities look, but the ones in Honolulu are an interesting group.  For some reason, a lot of them paint themselves gold.  Why?  I don't know.  But there are gold people all over the place doing weird dances and stuff hoping you'll throw some money in their cash can.  #4 is fascinated by these people and insisted on dropping a dollar in one guys can, imo he was the creepiest looking one of the group.  Street performers tend to creep me out.

Saturday we went to the water park.  It was a long day, but the kids had a blast.  Despite there being tons of people there, the lines weren't long and they got to go on everything they wanted numerous times.  It was the grand opening of a new attraction, so they got to do the tornado too.  I'm not much for water stuff, so we paid half price so I just went in as a bystander.  Yes, I spent the entire day at a water park and didn't get wet.  I've got some mad skilz.

We were totally exhausted by the time we were done, but our flight didn't take off until 9:40, so we had 5 hours to kill before we could get on the plane home.  But we finally got home around 11:00 and were happy to be there. 

While we were on vacation #4 watched a show on tv called ICarly about a couple of girls who have their own internet talk show.  Now she and her best buddy Maddie are doing their own version and are calling it IKonagirls.com.  Since we don't have a video camera, they're doing it on our little digital camera which had limited video capabilities.  They've filmed the introduction about a dozen times now and are having a blast.

This house we're staying in provides just about everything.  Yesterday, WE discovered that there are bathrobes hanging in every closet and he's been wearing one ever since.  He looks like a miniature Hugh Hefner.  Sometimes that kid is so darned cute.

We didn't do a whole lot today.  We needed to get a few groceries from town so we all packed into the 4 person jeep they provided for us and did a little driving around.  Putting 6 people, 4 of them siblings, in a vehicle intended for 4 people isn't the best way to travel, but I"m happy to report the kids didn't kill each other during our hour long drive.  I think tomorrow we're  going to Shipwreck Beach.  I'll give you my report then.

Looks like I'm not the only one on vacation here.  My background and my delicious picture of Candy seems tohave disappeared.  I'm too lazy to fix it now...maybe they'll magically return tomorrow.

Anyway, as promised - pictures of our vacation house!

This is the view from the bed in the master bedroom.

This is looking across the pool into the living room.  The walls are sliding pocket windows, during the day, we push them into the walls and everything's open.  At night, we pull them closed and we have glass walls in the dining room, living room and master bedroom.  Pretty cool, eh?

This one's pretty self explainatory...the pool.

Well, once again, vacation is well worth the stress of getting ready for it.  The house we're staying in is absolutely gorgeous.  #4 spent most of last night and today sitting in the pool.  She sat in the hot tub and watched Hannah Montana and Josh and Drake all day.  It's like an all Disney all the time kind of thing going on at the pool side tv.  I had a busy day.  First we went to town and did a little shopping.  There isn't much to town, a couple grocery stores and a few shops.  Less than 3000 people live on the entire island, so it's pretty sparsely populated.  After town, I read a book and fell asleep at poolside then played a couple board games with the kids.  WE totally fell in love with the huge tv in the media room - I think the screen is about 3 1/2 feet across and it's like being in a movie theater in there.  It gives me a headache if I'm in there for too long.  The whole house is pretty incredible.  When we were looking through it, I kept thinking I was in the master bedroom, but each bedroom got progressively cooler until we actually did get to the master - wow is all I can say.  Tomorrow I"ll post some pictures.

All in all, I'm having a pretty relaxing time.

Getting here was a bit interesting.  The first flight from home to Oahu was the same old same old, but the 2nd flight to get us to Lanai was in a little tiny single prop plane.  It seated 8 passengers and the pilot.  Definitely the smallest plane I'd ever been on.  Take off was a little nauseating, but once we were up, it was fine.  Since it's so small, we flew lower to the ground, making it easier to see the landscape below.  It was pretty neat.

I always get myself so worked up before we go on a vacation, that's why I don't like going on one.  But, we're pretty much ready to go now, which is good since it's 8 pm Saturday night and our flight is taking off at 7am Sunday morning.  That's one of the problems with living in Hawaii - you've always got to fly to go someplace.  It's kind of a pain.  But it'll all be good once we get to Lanai.  The house we're staying at is a really nice vacation rental.  Hubby's working on the wine cooler there, so they're letting us use the house for 5 days.  If you've got to vacation, you might as well do it in luxury, I always say.  We got a new camera yesterday, so maybe I"ll even post some pictures if I figure out how to do it.

We went to the beach today.  While we were there, hubby's buddy, Mutu, came up to visit.  Mutu speaks really heavy pidgin, so I only understand about half of what he's talking about, but hubby's hung around with him enough to know what he's saying.  Anyway, Mutu gave him a bumper sticker.  But not just any bumper sticker, it's a special bumper sticker.  Mutu says if you put that on your vehicle, you'll be untouchable.  So I guess we're now being protected by the Hawaiian mafia.  According to Mutu, not just any haole (white person) gets one of those, you have to have connections, and Mutu considers hubby his bra (brother).  So, no worries.

Good news!  Tonight when we were at Walmart, I found Hershey's Kisses cherry cordials.  YAY!!  I had these when I was on the Mainland last month, but hadn't been able to find them here, until now.  I bought 3 bags.  If you haven't tried these yet and like chocolate covered cherries, you've gotta buy a bag.  Yumba!

I got a lot done today.  For some reason, I was really energenic, which is unusual for me.  I got some more yard work done, did a major clean of our bedroom and bathroom, had friends over for a p ork roast dinner, did 3 loads of laundry and other various scrubby kinds of things.  I also made homemade bread, the kind you knead, not stick ingredients in a bread machine and a blueberry pie.  The pie was for my friend/neighbors birthday.  Her birthday was actually a month ago, but first I was gone to Wisconsin and before I got home, she needed to take a trip to California to be with her sick father and just got home yesterday.  So, today I made her birthday pie.  She made me a cherry pie for my birthday, so I was just returning the favor.

I'm trying to get everything ready for our vacation.  I like to have the house nice and clean when we leave so it's nice to come home when vacation's over.  Since we've had a steady stream of kids in and out of the house, it's a little difficult.  Today, at various times, we had 11 different kids here.  When's school start again?

This morning I was outside hanging up some laundry...that's all I was out there for.  Then I noticed that someone took out the garbage and left the cover off the garbage can, so it was buzzing with flies.  After taking care of that, I tried to put the garbage cans closer together, but the area was getting choked out with this viney stuff that makes up our front yard.  It's great in its place, but it quickly creeps out from where it's supposed to be and takes over other parts.  I started pulling up the vines and ended up doing the whole area along the driveway.  After piling that up, I noticed that the vines had started taking over the path that runs along the front of the house also.  We never use that path and never going in the front yard, but it really needed to be taken care of before it got out of control.  So, I started pulling.  Once I started, I just couldn't stop.  After about 2-3 hours, I got the whole area cleaned up, some trees cut back and there's a huge pile of vines that need to go the the green waste section of our local transfer station.  I worked my hiney off.  I was sweating, people.  I very seldom sweat - not only do I do everything in my power to avoid hard, physical labor, I'm not much of a sweater anyway.  But today it was literally dripping off my chin.  Very much gross.  Since I wasn't planning on working outside all morning, I didn't put any sunscreen on and didn't think of it until I was do gross, dirty and sweaty that I didn't even want to touch me to put the stuff on.  Not a problem though, me being the reflective person that I am, 3 hours in the hot Hawaiian sun made my shoulders slightly pink and it'll all be gone by tomorrow.  My northern European genes sure do come in handy sometimes.

I'm thinking I'll be sleeping good tonight.

Holiday, maybe I should be a professional de-clutterer.  You can be my first customer.  I'd love to go into a persons house and just start tossing stuff.  What could be more fun that getting a room all cleaned out and neat looking?  Though I'm such a minimalist I'd probably send my customers into shock.

After babysitting for 3 kids today, #2 was exhausted by the end of the day.  I took the cowards way out and spent most of the day at the office so I didn't have to be home.  I just reminded her that every hour she spends babysitting is getting her that much closer to her band trip to Disneyland next spring.  She told me Micky Mouse freaks her out because talking, smiling mice are just creepy.  Can't argue with that.

I guess it's been a couple of days since I posted last.  I've got excuses though!  I almost always post at night shortly before going to bed.  Thursday night we had a major thunderstorm with lightning and everything.  Lightning is much rarer here than it is in Wisconsin, so a big thunderboomer is a bit more exciting than it used to be.  We unplugged all the electronics, including the internet, so I couldn't post.  But I did get something accomplished.  I worked on the laptop with battery power and got my final edits done on my manuscript.  Now I'm going to send it in to an agent and hope she loves it so much she begs to represent me.

Last night, my computer was hijacked by #2 and I didn't get it back until right before bed when hubby hijacked it for a little while.  By the time everyone was done with it, I was too tired to bother posting.  So, here we are.  I thought I'd better post right now in the afternoon so I don't get derailed again tonight.

I'm trying to get the house looking decent for the summer.  If I'm going to be stuck with the kids all summer (yesterday there were 8 of them running around here, ages 5,7,8,9,10,12,14,& 15) I'm not going to do it in a cluttered house.  I brought a load to the thrift store Thursday and am working on another one for Monday.  I don't know how we accumulate so much junk.  #4's room looks really good, I got 1 bag of thrift and another garbage bag of garbage.  Got 2 bags of thrift and another of garbage from the boys room, though that one still needs some work.  I get a thrill in getting rid of stuff.  If I had my way, our house would have the absolute bare minimum to survive.  Of course, bare minimum includes the tons of books we own, because you need books to survive.  I'm never going to be one of those crazy old ladies who have narrow trails in their box and rubbish filled house...though I really do want to chase neighbor kids out of my yard with a broom, I think that'd be fun.