Day 2

Due to Forrest's mouthy attitude and disrespect to his mother, we have implemented a child-wide ban on watching TV, playing computer games, or playing the Wii. This was Rebekah's idea, and I am supportive. To be honest, I wouldn't have gone this extreme but I don't like my kids being entertained too much. Not sure why, as I did it as much as my Dad would let me get away with. But, I must say that so far, so good. It is only day two, so we'll see. I think we need to go at least a week, but Forrest's attitude will determine how much more than that it goes. We may keep it largely in affect, or much more tightly regulate these things from now on. I'm not sure. But I stayed home today (vacation) because I couldn't get to sleep last night due to some various things. We have a goathead infestation on our property. I didn't realize how fast that stuff moves. It's hit the edge of our lawn and on close examination we have two feet of the edge of our lawn hosting those nasty things. I used all my herbicide yesterday and starting ho-ing (not the female kind, but the garden utensil kind). I'm gonna send Rebekah in town to D&B to round up some more. Until them, I'm trying to motivate myself to start focusing on working on our house again. The past couple windstorms have ripped a bunch of shingles off. Scary places too. Hope I don't fall off when try to fix them.

7 Days later (actually, closer to 8)

This is meant to be a follow-up post about our car purchase, but a lot has happened this week so bear with me. Sunday was our first run with the "burb" and it went well. There are some considerations to factor in loading/unloading but we were pleased. By the way, if this post seems a little scatter brained, it's because I'm typing it while being swarmed by four little ones demanding graham crackers. Ok, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

My follow-up to my car buying experience is largely unchanged. This is good. Occasionally there is euphoria that wears off after a bit of a reality check. Well, I was very happy to have purchased a vehicle that met our needs so certain things were largely ignored. Mileage, certain vehicle features, etc. I have to say though that although our Durango was a nicer trim level, there isn't much that I preferred over the burb. In fact, things like the ride, exhaust/engine sound, dual zone AC in the front, make the burb nicer than I expected. Most importantly I haven't found anything odd like replacement doors or anything to indicate that it'd been in a crash. Of course, I wasn't expecting to find anything like that since I had asked for a carfax first. Always ask for a carfax before buying a car. If the dealership won't give you one go somewhere else. Hometown didn't offer me one, but when I asked it was no big deal and I had it a few minutes later. So, how does this story end? Well, for most people it would be over. For us, we still have to see if they have a spare burb key and I need to give them our spare Durango key. That sucker is expensive so whoever buys it will appreciate having a spare. So, in conclusion, if you're in the market for a new car, do your homework and know the value on what you have and what you want to buy, find a good salesman like Mike Brufffet, find a good dealership like Steve's Hometown in Weiser, and probably most importantly, follow your gut. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to have a good car-buying experience.

One last comment: I didn't go through their financing people as I wanted to use my credit union. I have been a member of Capital Educators Federal Credit Union since I was a kid. My Dad --a teacher-- used to have a guy come up once a year and sign kids up. In that many years, there have been a couple of mistakes made when I've done business with them, but the great thing about these guys is the level of service they provide. Anytime anything went wrong, they were obsessed with making things right and what more can you ask for? Happily though, this last experience was flawless as Cecile @ the Kuna branch worked on my loan. The service was prompt and friendly and I got a great rate. So, if you're not happy with your financial institution, I would strongly recommend these guys. They have really been branching out (hehehe. what a great pun) and so it's pretty convenient. I do wish they'd get one over in payette county though, but since they are in the credit union co-op, I can use one of the other local credit unions to get cash out.

Now for something completely different...

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging for a brief jaunt into where many fear to dread... buying a new car! Ok, it's used. But you still gotta deal with normally unpleasant things such as car salesmen, haggling, more hagggling, walking away, crying wives, crying children, kicked dogs, emasculation, and broken bank accounts. My first experience trying to buy a car about a year ago ended in tears, well actually laughter, as I was offered $6500 on my Durango when I owed $17,000. So, needless to say I was dreading this but we just couldn't put off the purchase any longer. After a few weeks of research we settled on a Suburban and found one at Hometown Motors in Weiser. (Here's a link to the vehicle, but it will be gone from the site soon). I was cautiously optimistic because my Dad had purchased his pickup from there a few years ago and he had a relatively pleasant experience from what I could remember.

After much hemming and hawing, we decided to go ahead with "trying" to purchase it. Part of me was dreading this so much that I partially hoped somebody else would buy it before we were ready. After taking care of some housekeeping, we finally got approval from our Credit Union (Capital Educators FCU) this morning for a 3.9% interest rate. So, my wife called the salesman we had been working with and let him know I'd come up about noon. So, I trudged up there with my shiny durango to see if we could work a deal. Mike met me as I pulled in. I was ready to fend off the various tricks. I had super-glued my keys to my hand so they couldn't hijack my vehicle like another other dealer had (ok, I didn't really. But I wouldn't hand them over). So, I met Dan who would evaluate my vehicle and went with him while he drove it. Even that was pleasant. We chatted while he checked things out and the whole thing was painless. It took a bit while he got numbers on the durango. Mike and I chatted about things from drywall texturing to plumbing with PEX. He even offered to help me out and loan me tools. Was this a trick to lull me into a sense of ease so that I would lower my defenses? My cynical self would typically think so, but with Mike I honestly believe he was just trying to be helpful. We had many things in common, not the least of which was the fact that he had twins in his family as well. An identifiable, personable human being a car salesman? What will they think of next?? Anywho, we finally got numbers and right out of the gate they were pretty reasonable. I dickered on one point and without push-back or anything high pressure we came to an agreement quickly. I think we both got fair deals without any real stress. I think that's important in a car purchase and pretty rare. Maybe it's a game to some people, but I don't want to beat somebody out of everything but their shorts (that's my dad's saying). I simply want and need a fair price with good service. The car dealership and salesman need to make a profit too. I could go on, but suffice it to say the experience was actually enjoyable and the people genuinely friendly and helpful. I would strongly recommend the guys in Weiser and a special thanks to Mike B. our patient low-pressure salesman, Dan the friendly and fair appraisal dude, and Jake the guy who put it all the docs together and put up with all my questions while we signed papers. If this experience is typical, I will be a repeat customer. Any of my Oregon/Idaho friends, I encourage you to check these guys out.

Tricycle races

and plastic egg fights. That's my two older boys for you.

Today I put in a new hot water heater. Since my brother was coming sometime I was in a bit of a hurry, so I decided to be a little reckless. My hot water heater was up on some cinder blocks so it could hook into the water pipes. Instead of taking a couple hours to drain it (it was plugged up with sediment) I decided to unhook it and then move it. Move is actually kind of a euphemism because i kind of did a pull, shove, and then dive. 50 gallons of water is quite heavy and once it started falling off the cinder blocks I knew I couldn't control it like I had hoped so I got out of the way and let it come falling down. When it hit it took out some of my furnance pipe that I had removed and set aside. But, I wasn't hurt and I got it out of the way. Unfortunately, the water was now draining out into the basement. Not a big deal as it's seen water before but the water had to go somewhere. So, I kept putting buckets under it as it drained out for the next hour or so. Then I started working on installing the new HWH (hot water heater). It was the same size, so I knew I shouldn't have any major issues but I couldn't safely lift it up the foot I needed all by myself. I guess the inside tank is glass coated and is kind of fragile. If you bang it around you might break the glass and have a leaking HWH before it was its time. This world has enough pain and sorrow and I didn't want to add to it by crippling a HWH in the prime of its youth. Thankfully, I have a very strong wife so with her help (I think she did most of the heavy lifting) we hefted it up and put the HWH where it belonged. A few tweaks and we were good to go. While I was working on the furnace pipe (el crusho flato) Tyler and Amy and offspring arrived. We chit chatted and all was good and nice.

Lately, I've been rolling with the punches pretty well I thought. But it seems that I keep getting punched. The cynical part of me says that If I start throwing hissy fits and temper tantrums then maybe it'll stop. There's some logic to that as God says he won't give us more than we can take. I just don't want anymore things to load me down anymore. I guess it's all just a matter of priorities combined with offloading the burden to God. Everything seems to work a little smoother if prefaced with prayer.

Trinity (T-bone) and Clell (Sea Biscuit) are walking now. Trin has been a walking fool. Clell walked first, setting the precedent but now he's content to let his sister have the limelight. What a swell guy huh?

Gotta go. Titus just got sick. too much excitement with not enough sleep and he throws up. Kind of weird, but i'm the last person to be critical of someone with stomach problems.

Ok, so here's the situation: Trinity and spiders

So, I crawled under the house yesterday. The spiders were a little irritated, I think, but for the most part they kept quiet. In fact, I only saw one that was alive, although I confess that I wasn't looking too hard. That one spider (must have been a female) was right in my way on the drain pipe that I needed to work on. Of course, it had to give me a piece of her mind about going where I didn't belonged. I tried to point out that it was my house, but since it wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, I squashed it. Conversation over.

Getting my large frame down there was fun (not) but my boys thought it was cool. I remember really thinking it was neat when my dad was under the house and I remember crawling under too. But i figured my boys would be a little more squeamish and be afraid of the spiders, but boys will be boys and they got under right along with me. Alas, I had no luck getting the cap off the pipe. But I did find out that the drain line isn't as elevated as it should be which is probably related to why it drains so poorly much of the time. But, I learned that I didn't want to run any more bathrooms into that line. So, I get to run a new line. Although that doesn't sound like fun, at least I can do that more on my own terms and can stay out from under the house.

Thankfully, Trinity hasn't met any spiders yet, but I bet they wouldn't scare her. I mention her because it's just the two of us @ home right now. My stomach was bothering me so I stayed home from church and Rebekah left Trinity. She has really bonded with me. I can usually get her to stop crying when nobody else can and if she's really upset a sing a little song to her that is set to "Chim, Chiminey, Chim Chim, Cheroo" and so far that always works. Obviously parents shouldn't have favorite offspring, but is it wrong to return the same affection to a child that seems to prefer you? Me not sure. I've been working harder to spend more time with Clell to avoid any expensive psychiatry bills for him in the future, but although he likes to try and rip my face off, he seems to prefer the mom vs "not the mom." So, striking a balance is always fun. I have Trinity as the wallpaper on my phone and Rebekah has Clell on hers. I think it balances out right?

Spiders fear me

Not the other way around. Well, that's what I tell myself at least. I'm going to crawl under the house and try to break open the plug on the cast iron pipe underneath my house. I'm realistic. I doubt I can do it, but I need to try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Boressed

a combination of bored and stressed. I'm at Carl's Jr. right now with the four oldest children. I've got my cool little netbook running Ubuntu netbook remix (linux) and connected to the free wifi. Pretty cool, but a little paranoid that somebody will steal my baby. Not my children. they make too much noise.

Why am I here? because I'm such a good husband and father? Not really. because I was hungry. True, but that's not the reason. Maybe I'm trying to pick up a single mom? Nice guess, I wouldn't have thought of that one, but no. For the free wi-fi? Not that desperate. Because my wife needed to work on finances and asked me to? Wow, you're good! But right now, I'm wondering just how much work my wife is getting done since I see she's posting to facebook. I might have to nominate her to midget status if she's not careful :)

I saw a friend who used to work @ woodgrain today. He and his wife have finally decided to join the rest of zombies and reproduce. The Bible says be fruitful and multiply but I think most people divide. either 2/1 and have two kids or 2/2 and have one kid. Rebekah and I took it to heart and multiplied by 3.

My back has been hurting me prety bad, and I think I've figured out it's something in my neck. I've had a pain in my neck lots of times but they're usually of the child variety.

Titus doesn't feel well, so I'd better post this and check on him. he tends to get sick when he's tired and playing.

Bonding with the boys

I think it's interesting that "they" (not sure who they is) seem to think that in order to spend time with your kids you have to have "quality time" or direct interaction. My Dad always stated that he thought "quantity time" was more important and I think I agree. Forrest and I started watching Dr. Who and now the boys are hooked and ask regularly to watch it. Since it's a good show with a minimum of language I've been letting them watch it with me. Every once in awhile I have to brace myself ask one of them comes racing over to cower by me because something scary is going on, but it's pretty mild stuff. I compare it to some of the old radio programs that I listen to. Lots of suspense and that combined with "bad guys" and aliens seems to be a winning combination for us guys. I was amused to hear Titus and Forrest playing Dr. Who tonight after dinner. Somehow, playing star wars makes sense to me but Dr. Who? I guess they like it more than i thought :)

Well, after I worked on my fire hazard over the weekend I forced myself to go outside and try to do something with my squealing truck. At least that way I got away from the squealing girls. Anyway, I was pretty sure that it was a belt that was loose, but since I'm not a mechanic like the rest of family I'm stumbling around in the dark. So, Forrest and I went outside and he helped me put the truck on ramps and get things together. I was really pleased with the little bugger. Granted, he's a bit more motivated since when he does well I put some money towards his "Super Mario Brothers Galaxy" fund. But since the kid has been wanting it for at least a year it definitely won't be an impulse buy. The good news i think the noise was just a loose alternator belt. If not, well, I guess I'll just have to club a midget in sacrifice to the car gods and try again.

Tonight I decided that I needed to cut something and my finger still hasn't healed so I got my saws out and started working on making a crawl space in one of our bathroom closets. In case you haven't guessed, using power tools is therapeutic. So, after a couple hours cutting and whatnot, I now have a big hole in the floor. All in a days work right? I am looking forward to communing with the spiders and crawling down there soon to try to tap into the plumbing.

Must do something

Right now I haven't gotten anything accomplished today other than deal with my electrical outlet. I took the outlet out and the house wiring was good and it didn't look like there was anything wrong. So, I put an expensive GFCI outlet in (no wonder I normally shop @ home depot. It cost twice as much in here). I don't think the GFCI will help with that sort of an issue, but it make me feel a little better.

In other news (if you can call it that) our girls had to go cold turkey on Little Einsteins. But after talking to a friend I started recording Clifford and Curious George. Now my government dollars are doing something worthwhile as my girls are rabid Clifford (the big red dog) fans which is broadcast on PBS. And it's free! I think we'll totally cancel the satellite in a couple months (right now it only has "family" programming) and save $30. But, I'm taking baby steps because I love my wife (and to a lesser extent my family).

Except for Trinity. She ties with Mom me thinks.

Fun @ 4

AM that is. We woke up to the sound of an incessant beeping. Rebekah investigated as I was totally out of it. She reported that the breaker had tripped and now it was smoky upstairs. I assumed that without power the pellet stove couldn't vent properly and thus it was the cause of the smoke. We had a oil heater plugged into an outlet and so I figured that tripped the circuit. Odd, but not unheard of. I was holding Clell and so Rebekah in her jammies went out and flipped the breaker. As we debated the cause in the dark, a few minutes later I heard a pop and the power went off again. Again, the brave beka went outside, but this time when she flipped the breaker I heard more pops and flashes of light and then one solid wavering light. While still holding Clell I ascertained that the outlet was emitting something commonly known as "fire." I reached down and unplugged the heater and thankfully the fire went out. But needless to say, we were and are greatly disturbed. It was old wiring in the house and now that we think about it we have had some issues before, just nothing near this magnitude. The power to that circuit is currently off, but I have to turn it back on eventually. I am going to remove the outlet and make sure the wiring up to the outlet is ok. Then, i'll put in a GFCI outlet. My Dad thinks that the problem is with the heater since the problem seems to be external to the plug. I hope this is the case as that's a much easier "fix." I'm gonna go get started working on it and if there's anything eventful I'll post back here. If I don't get electrocuted or burned up in a house fire that is :)

itty bitty polka dot

computer. Well, it's itty bitty at least. No polka dots though. It is blue for what that's worth. I've had my eye on one of these for awhile but didn't really need one. It's a netbook. Too small for most people but perfect for facebook and blogging. I bought it from a friend who is taking the funds and redirecting them towards an iPad. Unfortunately, my wife is eyeing this poor defenseless netbook with a lustful eye. Kind of inappropriate if you ask me. I mean, she is a married woman. But anyway, I am hoping to be able to blog a bit more now. Probably won't really, but the point is that I am happy. I even put Ubuntu Linux Netbook remix on it. Fast little bugger. I think it's pretty amazing myself, but without being able to see it, it's hard to understand. I had it at church tonight (ya know, so I could play Farmville on Facebook during the service) and people just thought it was my Bible. Anyway, I got it for a nice price because I was patient and my friend gets to further Apple's invasion. Win win if you ask me.

It slices, it dices!

my finger that is. I cut my ring finger really bad with a box cutter tonight. Usually, I use dull knives so the damage isn't bad. This cut was deep though, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to stop the bleeding. But, pressure does wonders and a tight bandage seems to be keeping the green (oops. I mean red, my blood is red. not green. nope. no green blood here. move along) RED blood in pretty good. A bit hard to type, but not too bad. The good news is that Titus' little play area is almost done. I have some mudding and trim left to do and Rebekah has to paint it, but I think I'll let the kid move in this weekend. Then I'm onto my super big project--putting a new bathroom in upstairs. Gonna be fun!

Haunting

Most people like Nostalgia. It's cool when it's controlled and all warm and fuzzy, but I just spent an hour going through a couple old shoe boxes of college mementos and sorting out stuff that didn't have any real meaning from stuff that sort of did. Wow, are those some acidic memories. Not necessarily bad, just traumatizing. Of course, going through all that turmoil enabled me to endure the whirlwind romance with Rebekah later on in life. I was watching a documentary on Joseph Goebbels (google it you lazy bums) and they read from his diary. Man, I guess everybody has the same emotional problems regarding love (and life). Even my friend Kelly admits to being human in this area at some point in his life. Anywho, I found some neat stuff including a MAC-10 tie tack my Dad sent me. Well, nothing incredibly pithy or anecdotally amusing, just some mental drivel emitting since the house is quiet.

I'm confused

I just read my blog a minute ago and found out that I was a pretty great guy. Of course, I knew that already but somebody felt compelled to login to my blog and write something nice about me. What? No, I didn't write that myself! What do you mean, you don't believe me? Would I do something like that? Well, yeah, but that's beside the point, I didn't do it! Ok, I'm going to hold my breath until somebody confesses.

Grant has passed out and laying on floor bleeding from a bad head wound. Ironically is was his wife that wrote the blog post, thinking that she was logged into her blog. Hopefully, she'll come get him before he ruins the carpet.

My Husband

He's outdone himself this week - really! On Monday, he watched the four older kids (and a friend watched the babies) while I went shopping. I left the house before 9am and got home at 5pm, so it was all day thing. While I was gone, he fixed my computer and then worked some in Titus' new room. And when I got home, he helped unload the Durango. Today, after work, he got me a shelf unit from Lowe's. It's better than the one I had picked out, and looks awesome in the kitchen! He put it together while watching the 4 kids again while I took a couch in to town. See, isn't he great?! And you thought he couldn't be a sweet, lovable, and thoughtful fella! :-)

Oh, and tomorrow is his birthday, so that makes it even more amazing...it's his freebie week! LOL

Love you, Grant!

"I Will Survive"

I have lots of profound thoughts that never make it to my blog. that's ok. most is just mental regurgitation that probably isn't that interesting anyway. Since the audience I have is so diverse (three different people) it is sometimes hard to avoid saying things that will offend. Normally, I don't mind offending people. That's not my goal, but if they get offended then I am doing my part to help them build a thicker skin, thus improving humanity. Why this odd post? Oh, they're all odd you say? Well, I had a challenging few hours last night. Nothing big to be quite honest, but they could have been very ugly. For once, family had nothing to do with it. I won't bore you with what happened at work, but suffice it to say I locked myself out of some systems. Then, after cleaning up that mess, I went home @ 7 PM only to find out there was bad news on that front too. Thankfully, Rebekah managed to prepare me for some bad news before hitting me with it. I sat down on the floor while she ejected the kids. My mind races through all sorts of horrible things before she told me. I had time to ask God that whatever it was to give me grace and not get too upset. Turns out that our pellet stove was broken. Instead of throwing a hissy fit as I am prone to do, I asked her some questions and went and looked at it. The auger wasn't turning, but you could hear the motor trying. Rebekah had removed all the pellets as well as the back of the stove so I was able to sit right down and look at it. I was able to quickly figure out that either something was wrong with the motor or the auger. I disconnected the motor and Titus helped me troubleshoot it (he turned on the power when I told him to). That was good. So, I looked at the auger. It sure seemed jammed to me. After messing with it, I finally opened up the stove door. There was a huge pile of pellets in the burn pot backed all the way up. Aha! It was Rebekah's fault. Not sure how, but she makes a cute scapegoat. So, we *think* that we didn't empty the ashes enough and that caused the pellets to stop burning which caused the backlog which eventually caused the auger to jam. We fixed that and I turned the shaft manually and it broke free. Sweet! I rule! I did a little jig like Hitler did after the successful invasion and surrender of Poland (or was it France? I think it was France) and promptly dropped all my tools and went downstairs and ate dinner (It used to be supper but my wife has corrupted me and now I use the wrong word). What's the moral of the story? I'm not sure, but I think it had something to do with Hitler and Obama.

Speaking of Obama, I'd like to take this time to thank President Bush and the Republican Congress of 2004 for passing the additional Child tax credit portion of the Working Families Tax Relief Act. Thanks to that we get a nice return due to the fact that they'll let me have some of my social security tax back before I'm old and the guvmint is bankrupt. Unfortunately, in 2011 (unless Obama decides to feel my pain) our tax refund will be less than 25% of what it was this year. Oh well, to quote some 70's singer "I will survive." Not sure about Bek and the kids, but I'll make it :)

Our girls are mostly normal

Much to my incredible dismay we had an appointment with a pediatric endocrinologist on Saturday. In Boise. At 12:00 PM. Argh! What's an endocrinologist you ask? Google it! I'm not here to answer questions for people too lazy to use a search engine. I'm here to regale you with stories of triumph over tragedy as well as a some of trial over tribulation. Now, back to my story. So, why were we going to an endo... forget it. Why were we going to the doc? Well, that's an ok question but too personal to put it on the blog. Suffice it to say, the girls have had an abnormality of the hirsute variety since birth. We didn't worry about it since the NICU docs said it was normal, but our ped doc freaked out and wanted to do all sorts of tests. I said we weren't doing that until somebody smarter than her (the Ped doc) told us we should. Obviously I was slightly more tactful than that... slightly. So, 4 months later we got hooked up to a traveling doc who knows something about these things. Turns out the girls are mostly normal (I was pretty sure of that) but their motorcycles might be out of tune or irregular or something when they were older. I forget, but I know he said something about cycles. And apparently cycles have something to do with getting pregnant. I've heard about such things with regard to cars and their backseats, but never about motorcycles. Anyway, i'm not sure what cars and motorcycles have to do with a couple unique little girls but that's ok. What matters is that our girls our "Mostly Normal"

Since I wasted my Saturday in Boise, I'm taking tomorrow off to do some more work upstairs.

Oh! and I was watching American Outlaws with Colin Farrel (Jesse James/western) and one of the guys @ a town meeting is "Clell Miller." cool huh?

Sieze the Carp! quick, before it gets away!

I really hope that when I'm more old and infirm I don't yearn for yesteryear. Most people's lives seem to have peaked in college. Well, thankfully I went to Bob Jones so that was the opposite of a peak for me (read pit). I know that many parents can't wait for their kids to grow up. I don't really feel that way. Yes, I'm running on the ragged edge of my sanity and of my abilities. But I do love my children and although it seems like all I ever do is yell at them, a friend pointed out that I must be a horrible Dad since the kids are so scared of me (yeah, he was being sarcastic). I think like Paul said (and I brutally paraphrase here) it is best to be happy in whatever situation you're in. The temptation to be discouraged or even depressed can be great at times, but I think that I have less (far far less) to complain about than ever before. Not that I've ever had a truly good reason to complain. I think that the point of Carpe Diem (sieze the day) gets lost. It is too easy to make everything about ourselves. And as much as I like to tell me wife that it is truly all about me, deep in the cockles of my heart I know tis not true. I think that being a parent is one of life's greatest responsibilities. So little of what I do is because I "want to" but rather because my family needs it. But I don't mind because I love my family. But to be honest, there's not much left of me when I'm done. But that's ok, cause I said so.

Oh, and my kids are already growing up too fast to suit me. They always have.

Before I finished this blog post a partially clothed Serenity came and laid on my side while drinking out of her sippy cup.

God doesn't like me very much

yeah, that's Rebekah and I were thinking last night. Of course, @ 1:30, 2:30, 3:00 AM you're not thinking really rationally. Of course, Rebekah was up a lot more than that. Both Trinity and Clell are sick. But last night they must've had a stomach ache or something because they were really miserable and let us know it by screaming. I was planning on taking this morning off so Rebekah could get some rest so I finally went upstairs and pulled out a mattress that we had put under the girls bed and slept on it. I would've slept on the floor at that point. Rebekah is going to take Trinity to the Dr. this afternoon so I guess I'll be home the rest of the day. Poor little baby girl has a bad fever. Clell isn't doing too bad though this morning and nobody got any toys out so he pulled himself up tot he basket and got some out himself. He's a self-serve kind a guy, just like his namesake.

Other than sickness, things are going pretty well. Christmas was enjoyable but really showed our financial limits. I'm not sure what else we can do and wonder repeatedly if I should look for a job elsewhere. We'd be fine but for all our medical debts, but I know that a little hardship is good for the soul, even though I don't like it. Why don't I get a job somewhere else? Because I'd have to commute to downtown boise in most instances. I don't think I would mind the time but to lose that much from my family every day is pretty hard to take. I guess I'm waiting on the Lord (that sounds better than "I'm procrastinating")

ok, If I don't see you again, have a nice life.

Deep thoughts

by Jack Handy.

Ok, not so much. I've had a few thoughts that were deep that I seriously considered blogging about but I like to keep things superficial. That way, when the time comes for Operation "Yo Momma" everybody will be surprised.

The Ballard Clan of New Plymouth has sojourned south and east for the Christmas season. We have joined with the Ballard Clan of Fairfield and the Ballard Clan of "Lives right behind Clan of Fairfield" for a family filled Christmas. Notice I omitted "fun." Traveling with six wee ones and the various accoutrements  is fatiguing. The packing begins the prior day which is preceded by lots of organization by the Clan Mother. We decided that for safety and other reasons we really needed to take two vehicles. So, just to come visit is costing almost $100 in gasoline alone. Oh well, Christmas comes but once a year. right? Please tell me it's only once a year. So, we made it here safe and sound even though those stupid 1A/5B drivers try to run us off the road. I'm only going the speed limit on a snow covered road through the mountains, silly me. The natural man part of me wishes to see their stupid rig go plummeting off the edge of the mountain and burst into a a fiery explosion. But the redeemed part of me prays for their safety and that of others that may encounter them.  One kind of odd sight that we witnessed was a bunch of snowboarders using parachute type sails to pull them over the prairie. Kind of cool. But once again a part of me wished coyotes on them. I'm just very grinchy, what can I say?

Smile, you're on candid camera.