Caught Up and CAUGHT!!

Bike Ride!

 4th of July Dance - little ones going strong at 12MN!

 Something RARE!

 Miss Moonbeam Cuts IN!!

Archer UNSUCCESSFULLY tries to get Super Catman to Dance with Rabbit

 The Guys - Camping

Us Girls

Mist, Baby and company

Miss Moonbeam

Fiery's Brother and wife

Mist, Firey and Baby Man

 My Family

 No place i'd rather be!

Birthday Girl! 4!

At the lake the other day

To be honest with you, I have written 2 or 3 blog stories, so i haven't completely abandoned blogging.  I just never posted them.  They just didn't have that good die a thousand deaths quality..  I've done a lot of good embarrassing things to blog about - threatened to mace my husband, cried because i had to pee so bad, you know, the usual.  BUT they all lacked something and after an hour or two of writing, I hated them too much to put them up.  Summer gets busy and its hard to process all my thoughts.  Then I hit rock bottom again and bingo, posts preform.  Its as if I need to be suffering somehow to make things really interesting.  Hence my latest  "CAUGHT!"

    I've never been known for being a good driver.  As a matter of fact, I come from a long line of bad driving.  BUT I've gotten away with it for the most part.  For every ticket I've ever had, I've been stopped at least 3-5x by a nice police officer who has mercy on me and lets me off.  For every near miss, well very few accidents.  Not so today.  Today was my day of reckoning.......  Violent music please......

    I'd been burning a lot of candles camping, swimming, working some 12 hr night shifts and my sleep was amuck.  I'd not slept and fell out of bed on any side but right.  Try as I might, sleep would not come to me last night.  When I woke up, I felt like I'd been hit in the head with a hammer and my coffee wasn't touching it.  After putting on yesterdays dress and plastic wrapping my eyeballs, I rushed out the door with coffee no 2.  I drove anxiously, as I was just barely making it to class on time.  Maybe it was being in a hurry, maybe its that my depth perception is a bit off with these new contacts, maybe its the lack of sleep, probably a combination of all, but right there, next to my work place, I drove right into the side of a moving flatbed trailer.  Oh the horror.  Here I was 2 minutes to my class starting and there I was standing over broken glass and my bumper on the ground!  The guy was nice, but I'd thrashed the tire on his company trailer.  I looked around wondering how many employees were going to see the....errrr... incident.  I gave the man my insurance info and he gave me his.  He looked more worried about my car.  I felt more worried about it causing a scene and everybody at work knowing.  He was REALLY a nice guy.  I was thankful.  There was nothing to do but drive the van around to an inconspicuous parking spot on the other side of my work place.  I picked up the biggest pieces of broken glass and plastic and hurriedly put it inside looking around hoping nobody was noticing.  The last thing I needed was everybody making a big deal about my stupidity.  Imagine me driving a minivan with the bumper literally being pushed along the pavement by the tires!  It was a bit er... noticeable!

   So I got to class and my imagination was going WILD!  The class was full of people I work with.  I had to remind myself that they didn't know on a regular basis.  I was quite sure that at any time I might get arrested and hauled away in handcuffs or fired for stupidity or both!  I couldn't focus a thing on the subject matter and I was SURE yes SURE the worst was going to happen.  I had to keep reasoning with myself and telling all that silly fear to "go"!!  Finally after an hour somebody came to tell me that the police were looking for my husband.  For some reason they thought it was him who did it.  I laughed and called them.  They wanted to see me - ugh.  I told them where I was.  They said they'd call back.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  My husband didn't yell.  He came and quietly started working on making the van drivable.  The policeman was nice and didn't issue me a ticket.  He said to call my insurance company and that it was all going to be okay.  Nobody but my teacher even knew I was outside talking to the police, though I was dying a thousand deaths imagining it so.  Half an hour after the policeman and my husband left, our whole class went outside to practice self defense moves.  The timing could have been ALOT WORSE!  Again, God had mercy on me.  My husband even took the object of horror with him and left me his truck and he took me out to eat later on.  All in all the fear and anticipation of what was going to happen was a lot worse than what really transpired - a simple fender bender.  The policeman kindly reminded me that "it could have been a lot worse."

   Still shaken, the lady at the bank tried to encourage me by saying "one time i drove over a curb".  Yeah, lady, whatever!  Then she  told me her husband was going away for 3 months.  That would have been worse.  Somebody else told me that their husband got fired from his job yesterday.  I need to be thankful for what I do have and what didn't happen.  Everyone is alive and okay except for my pride once again - selah.

Catching Up Post

Here are some random pics from the rest of the trip - Having fun with friends and family!

My Redneck Reunion

 At Yellowstone

 My Husband's Old School Yard

 The Outdoor Shower

  
As the day approached I was really dragging my feet..... Its not that I didn't want to see people, its just that I've become so so content in my little North Idaho home that it was becoming increasingly hard to leave. On the day we left, I kissed the top of Archers head about a hundred times and wished him well just as many, secretly wondering about his female pursuits in our absence. He has good taste in women and I'm pretty confident that he's going to land a good one. All of the ones he likes, I like. Anyhow, I smothered the top of his head in kisses and headed out the door setting my jaw for the umpteen hours ahead.

By 4 or 5 am we toured Yellowstone National Park as if we were a somewhat "normal" family and by noon were on toward our Family Reunion in Kansas destination. Early evening I was loudly hinting that my husband should find some kind of stopping point, and by the time he looked it was nearing darkness. Soon I was ragging on him because we couldn't find a suitable "non permit" type place. By night we were acting like spys with red lights trying to set up camp in an undisclosed "no camping" location, declaring "BLACK OUT!" whenever we saw head lights. By 5am that next morning, we were getting rained on and off driving again. Really and truly, I wouldn't have traded it for a crappy motel in the city. Its just in me to sleep in the fresh night air.

By now we'd been on the road for a couple of days and starting to feel rather grungy. My dear husband couldn't wait to get to his old stomping grounds and gave us a rather lengthy tour before taking us to where his parents took him camping as a child. I started cooking burgers but when I saw my husband in the lake I immediately abandoned the lunch preparations and dove into the beckoning waters. After all that we were on to Kansas and my crazy crew of cousins.

My family are not your average clan. I've got rich and poor, northerners and southerners, easterners and westerners, old and young, fat and thin, but none normal, no not one. They're all crazy, pure insanity and when they get together you can be assured there WILL BE some form of drama, a lot of laughing, and quite possibly we will all know and be advised on the evils of our way. Without a doubt, you can go anywhere, be insulted by anyone, but never so lovingly insulted except by your own.

Though I had not dieted as I'd hoped, I had purposely plastic wrapped my eyeballs (obtained contacts) for the occasion and even dyed my hair a nice rich black brown mistakenly thinking that it looked close to my original color. I had on a semi-cute outfit, even make up and was freshly lake bathed. I was ready, or so I thought. After a 45 minute welcome surrounding the our overpacked minivan, we proceeded with caution to the older adults. My mama embraced me loudly whispering "you've been messing with your hair again - shame on you!!" Her sister picked up on it and started loudly commenting "so you're dying your hair now blah blah blah". I shrunk down not feeling quite so confident to see everybody. She saw my obviously fallen face "well it looks better now" she said trying to make me feel better "it used to be such a mousy brown". Several cousins cringed feeling my embarrassment. There was an awkward silence and then I made some stupid loud comment about hair dye and the conversation was back to a dull roar. I don't regret the dye, I hate seeing gray here and there and that would have probably been the topic had I left it. One perceptive cousin later tried to make me feel better by telling me one year his welcome was since he was 30 and unmarried he "must be gay". We laughed hysterically. It was good to be back with the cousins.

As the days wore on, more families arrived along with more cases of beer. Most of my mom's brothers and sisters stayed at a motel in town, but our family "camped" in my aunt and uncles old travel trailer. I liked it that way. The evening was ours and we had a lot of fun visits with our adult cousins who stayed upstairs in the old farmhouse. Even my cousin Iggy brought her motor home there. Days were filled with fishing the old pond, games, visits and trips to the pool in town. The hot Kansas sun seemed a bit forgiving being tamed down by the blustery winds. It was pure paradise.

My Aunt and Uncle raised their 5 kids home schooling and travelling all over across states and even countries. He gave up a prestigious job in Chicago to live a simpler life and raise his family the way he and his wife wanted, though they kept this big old farmhouse as a home base of sorts. My oldest cousin was tragically killed last year and it left a big hole which can never be filled but by God's Grace. He left behind a beautiful son being raised by his ex-wife along with a half brother. I never dreamed I would get to see the day that I could take that little boy in my arms and give him a big ol bear hug. Well the day came. His gracious ex-wife came with her mother and let the little boy enjoy the entire reunion with us. He is the same age as my Super Catman and they hit it off right away. The weekend was extra special, over the top getting to have him there. Watching him play, it was as if I could see my dear cousin, back as a child again.......

Surprisingly, the biggest drama, was my own. I'd promised to cook breakfast for everyone one morning and was anxious to begin the 3 hour endeavor. Armed with my cast iron pan and a big slab of butter, I saw my dear Saphara take off for a run wishing her well. This was going to be a big job! Men were happily converging on pancakes, eggs, potatoes, bacon and sausage as I furiously fried on when my cell phone rang. It occurred to me hours had elapsed since I'd seen my daughter. She was calling from a strange number and sounded as if she'd been crying. "Come pick me up at such and such a truck stop she breathed, I'll explain later". Panic seized me and in a near hysteria sounding voice I commanded my husband, who was on his 2nd or third round of breakfast to "GO GET HER NOW!". Suddenly a big bunch of my redneck cousins threw their chairs back in unison and went for their shotguns and assorted weaponry. In no time there was a big posse of well armed men poured into our minivan "white lightening" screaming out of the drive way. Luckily, one of them is a cop, so I knew nothing would get too out of hand. As time marched on, peace flooded over me and I was pretty sure that I had panicked without reason and there was most likely a perfectly good explanation. In the end, the men returned laughing over the incident. Miss Saphara had been given bad directions by passersby and found she had ran 7 miles from the farm. She didn't want to have to run back in the heat. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to live this one down and neither is she ;-)

All in all, when it was time to pack up nobody wanted to leave. I fell in love with the corn fields and the blustery nights. I fell in love with my Arkansas Cop Cousin's spirited southern wife and her hilarious fiery redheaded baby. I fell in love with Iggy's quiet little "tree frog" baby and with watching my neices run through the long grass in pretty dresses. I fell in love with "the outdoor shower" and with listening to the singing of old songs encouraged by a little wine. I gasped more than once at the outstanding art sculptures and paintings that were proudly displayed around the farmhouse, crafted by a cousin too humble to see what an incredible man he really is. I could feel nothing but pleased as I watched my son Super Catman running with that little boy and thinking of how pleased my grandmother would have been, should she see them now. I could feel the power of my family and we hugged each other goodbye and I knew we would always be close. I fear for the person who tries to mess with one of them. So many treasures like an aunt who I hadn't seen since forever and my chocolate loving girl cousin who really wanted to hang around with me. Maybe that was it, they all actually seemed to enjoy being with us. Thats rare among family, really rare.  At any rate, it was on to Nebraska to see all of my husband's grandparents and many many relations and after that Minnesota. The trip had just begun, and yet a very significant memory was about to end. You know you had a good time when being pooped on by a baby was all part of the fun - selah.