The birthday girl....mom

Andrew and Shaun

Dad and Alexa

Mike

This is Joe, John, Mike and Andrew playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Before I met Mike, I didn't think anyone outside of the1980's played this anymore.

I think it has been two weeks since I posted anything. All I can say is Anatomy and Physiology! Oh yeah, and Algebra for Dummies. Seriously, what was I thinkin...thinkin I could take my very worst subject online. I highly recommend taking Algebra in a classroom, not online. I will try to do the Reader's Digest version of the last two weeks.

Andrew and Alexa: schoolwork, playing, playing on their computers.....the norm. We did go see the practice performance of the play that the high school put on. Very cute. It was something about Trixie the teenage detective....a spoof of Nancy Drew. The kids and I all enjoyed it and it was something different to do during the day.....a little "culture". Alexa got to go over to her friend Brooklynn's house. She has never been over there so that was big fun for her. Andrew sees his best friend, Cory, once a week, typically.

Mike: this is from before this week, but he got all O's on his performance evaluation. O is the highest you can get. The only bad thing his boss had to say about him was he works too hard. He does the work of two people, never takes a lunch. He is going to burn out soon! Of course, he comes home in the loveliest of moods.....HA!! At least now I have a partner in trying to get him to chill out a little. Satin, his office partner, gripes at him to take a lunch, slow down, etc.... the same things I have been telling him at home. Hopefully with enough of us griping at him....

Me: Anatomy and Physiology, Algebra, work, school, the kids, housework, meals, repeat.

All of us: We had mom, dad, and Shaun out last Saturday for mom's birthday. We had lots of munchies and played Attack Uno and Mexican Train Dominoes. It was fun. Even Andrew played games with us and had fun and he never has fun playing games, unless it is computer games or ADD. Speaking of ADD, I snuck a photo of Andrew with the GEEKS playing Dungeons and Dragons. The guys had their monthly get together two weeks ago.

New family member

This is Maggie. Unfortunately this is one of the best pictures (2 more pics at bottom) I can get of her at this point because she is scared of the camera. And the kitten, and the other dogs, and of stairs, the basement, being alone, and I am sure a host of other things. Good thing we don't need her as a guard dog.

Of course, being something that happened here, there is a story to how we got Maggie. Mike's office partner, Satin, sent me pictures of these 2 dogs that were about to be put down at the Humane Society. They were adorable, but I figured there was no way Mike was paying for dogs. Plus just days earlier I had said I didn't want any more big dogs. The next day, Wednesday, my friend, Monica called me to tell me what a dork Mike was. Duh. He was in her office helping her with computer stuff. We got to talking and started teasing Mike that I had bought the dogs. Apparently it continued after we got off the phone, with her telling others that came in her office that we had gotten these dogs. Mike went back to his office, told Satin and she totally played along. Later, Mike called me to ask me about the dogs and to tell me he transferred money to the checking account (so the check I wrote for the dogs wouldn't bounce). I couldn't help it, I started laughing and laughing. I didn't know all of this had been going on or I would have played along. Oh well. Mike had gotten used to the idea of the dogs, so I sent him the picturese of the, he liked the way they looked and went to the Humane Society website. Meanwhile, the girlfriend of his friend, John, called the HS to tell them we were interested. Kimberly volunteers there and they were closed on Wednesday, so she left a message for them. Mike went on Thursday, to do the paperwork and look at the dogs. He told them he would be back on Friday around noon to pick them up.

On Friday, Kimberly went and told them that we wanted the dogs, Mike went down around noon, but they had sold the other dog out from under us. He and Maggie had been together for 5 years (their original owner died). This really made me irritated because both Mike and Kimberly had told them we wanted both dogs.

So now we just have Maggie. She is super sad. You can tell that she misses Lincoln and is scared that we are going to take her back to the HS. (they had been adopted shortly before we adopted her, but that person brought them back saying they were aggressive to small animals...cats, rabbits, etc. and that they ran horses) Maggie is the least aggressive animal I have ever seen. Like I said she is scared of everything. But she is so sweet and we love her already.

All the beasts enjoying the weather on Monday, Jan.4

Spirt and Sequoia
Scamp
Thunder - he usually only runs when chasing after cars -

shows how much he was loving the weather!

Alexa and Andrew - the wildest beasties of them all

Pink Flamingos are way too normal......

I want a different kind of lawn art...one that speaks about us, what we do, where we are, how white-trash we really are....therefore, I am going with the new "real size" bus lawn art.

This is where my bus ended up after numerous attempts to get out of the driveway yesterday morning. Being me, ahem, I thought perhaps I could pull up and try to turn around and get out of the driveway nose first....that worked out nicely. The bus got stuck at the west end of the driveway that goes out to the pasture. And in the yard. Of course all this was happening in the dark, in the rain.... After I realized I wasn't going to be going anywhere, I ran out of the bus, dialing the bus barn....and bolted across the yard to my freezing cold car to head up to the bus barn to get my bus. This one is actually a "rental"....mine was getting worked on at the time. One of the girls that I work with was sweet enough to start my bus for me. I ended up only being 11 minutes late on my route. That's not too bad. Another girl that I work with got stuck in the mud while running her route. This photo is of our driveway going out to the road......the driveway is so swampy.....we may have 'gators!

The rest of my life is so boring I can only post when something happens that is funny and fits in with how things usually go around here. Fortunately that happens pretty frequently. Actually, I tend to forget to post. I think I am going to then life happens.

Monday, and wasn't it gorgeous?, we went over to my friend Juanita's house to play dominoes. This is not your grandpa's dominoes that we play. This is cutthroat dominoes. I think it is called Mexican Train Dominoes, though I'm not sure why. It is so much fun. We used to play weekly, but I think this was only the 3rd or 4th time all year long. I miss it, it is very therapeutic to play and get to hang out with friends. Since it was so nice, the kids all got to play outside. YAY!