This is NOT the Indy 500!

On Monday we picked up our new (used, new to us) 120 snowmobile for the kids. We now have two of them. The kids were so excited to be able to ride together and to be able to race. So, we turned them loose and boy was it an eye opener regarding their personalities!

As they buzzed around the yard, Joe and I observed their every move from our birds eye vantage point, also know as our bedroom window. After they had ridden for 10 minutes or so, they decided to race down the driveway. (Our driveway is 600 feet long or so, which makes a great runway!) The first pass wasn't too successful. Madison took off down the lane before Jace got turned around. Cheater. The second pass started off better. They got lined up, counted, and took off. The machines are pretty evenly matched, Madsion had a bit of a lead off the line, but she was not pulling ahead by any means. She remained just inches ahead the entire length of the lane. Just before they entered the yard, she veered to her left, pushing Jace off the lane and nearly into the pasture. He managed to get back into the yard alright and didn't seem to be rattled by the events at all. Shortly thereafter, Madison came into the house for something. We asked her about the incident. Her reply? "I didn't want him to win." We talked to her about fair races and about safety on the snowmobiles and sent her back out.

Joe and I watched the kids for another 15 minutes or so. Suddenly Jace ran into the front yard, where Madison was alone on her snowmobile. (He had been in the back with Madison just seconds before). He said something to her, she dismounted her snowmobile, he jumped on and took off. We scratched our heads. Where the heck was Jace's sled?? Our answer came soon enough.

Enter Madison. She came in and we asked her what was going on. She replied that Jace had crashed his sled. Then she burst into tears saying "I will never get to ride a snowmobile again!" Huh?!?

We went out to investigate. Holy crap! He had indeed wrecked his sled. He had nosed it under our flat-bed trailer which stands about 1 foot off the ground. Buried up to the headlight! Needless to say the hood has seen better days. We actually had to use the tractor to lift the trailer off the snowmobile! Once that problem was solved, we began the process of accident investigation. Madison told us that Jace had come up the hill and crashed into the trailer; he had gone too fast she said. Jace told us the rest of the story. He and Madison had been racing side-by-side in the back pasture. As they came over the hill onto the building pad, he realized he was heading for the trailer and had tried to veer to the left (he couldn't go right because that is where the tractor was). Madison wasn't going to let him in (she said she again saw this as a chance to win). He realized his fate was to hit the trailer, so he JUMPED before impact! Thank goodness he had the foresight to bail because he probably would have wound up with a broken leg as he sailed over the wreckage. Just to put your minds at ease, yes, they both wear helmets!

All's well that ends well. However, NEVER compete with Madison. Apparently death is an acceptable rick for her! (Maybe the black eye Jace got during a Wii tennis match with her was not accidental! Perhaps we should have seen this coming!)

So Much For Small Town

Yesterday started off as all other school days do. Kids up, kids dressed, lunches packed. Kids to school, mom to gym. Home. Once I got home, my cell phone started dinging txt messages at me. The first one I got said "The Sheriff's Department has placed your school under precautionary lockdown. More information to follow."
What!!??!!
I called the kids school and they had no clue what the text was regarding. We figured it must be for Woodland Hills. I turned on the news, made some phone calls and found that something unusual had occurred in our not-so-little cow town.
About 10:00 am, an iHop employee was leaving the staff entrance to take the deposit to the bank. Some Goober (possibly and ex-employee) robbed the iHop guy at gun point. He hit the employee on the back of the head with the gun and shoved him into the garbage container area in the parking lot. Cue school lockdown. The Sheriff's Dept placed close to 10 schools on lockdown due to the fact that the Goober was armed, violent, and had disappeared. The kids were locked in (parents out) for roughly 1 1/2 hours. The lockdown was called off at 11:20 am. However, Goober is still at large.
I watched the local news last night to see if any developments have been made in the case. I had to laugh. Welcome to small town newscasts. The report was that they had not caught the guy but they were sure they could find him if only they had video surveillance. Ya think?
What about iHop says "get-rich-quick" to you? Anyhow, in the mean time, I am sure that our goober is enjoying his new-found wealth. Don't spend it all in one place!







**UPDATE**
They caught the guy! Get this, the robber was the victim! Who would've thought! What a GOOBER!

This morning my dear children woke me up at 5:40 am to tell me they were going to let me sleep in. Ummm, I don't think they get this sleeping in thing.

America Rising Video- A Must See

This video has been posted and removed multiple times on you tube. I found it to be very true and very powerful. It is time to take America back!!
America Rising Video- A Must See

It's starting already!!

Well, I knew it was going to begin sooner than I was ready for, but I am thinking that this is just ridiculous!
Yesterday Jace and I were looking through my e-mails. I got one from Lexus announcing the new 2010 GX. Jace thought we should check it out. We watched the little video which highlighted all the safety features. Boy were they cool! You know me, I love technology gadgets!
The GX has auto-adjusting cruise control which senses the vehicle in front of you and automatically adjusts the cruise control, so you never get too close. It has rear, side and front mounted cameras which eliminate blind spots. There are lots of neat-o airbags strategically placed around the cabin. It also has sensors which will tell you if you are approaching the lane lines (handy for those who do their best sleeping behind the wheel.... JOE). Anyhow, it really was cool, so we priced it out. $62,000. Yeah, it's off the short list! Well, Mister Jace, clever fellow that he is, says "We should get that Mom. Just think how safe all that stuff would make me when I can drive". I started to open my mouth to tell him he was INSANE for thinking that, when he quickly added, "By the time I can drive it would be an old car. But it would still have all that safety stuff. Just think how safe I would be."
Oh crap. I am not ready for him as a teenager!

New Year

Well, we have survived it.... 2009 that is. We have been so blessed this past year! Our Christmas was wonderful. My children got to spend their first Christmas with their Grandma and Grandpa Clark as well as with assorted Aunts, Uncles and cousins. We were so excited to have them all. We were only missing the Flemming Family adults. (Abby was able to join us). We ate and played games and watched Grandpa and the kids play endlessly on the snowmobiles. Hopefully they all had a good time. I know we did. Memories we will never forget. Thanks gang!

Well, the New Year is here and is a vast clean slate. What am I gonna screw up this year? What are we gonna get right? What new lives will be brought into our family and to whom will we say goodbye? These are all things that only time will tell. I pray that as the year unfolds, our family will be blessed with bounteous joys to accompany the sorrow and hardships we are sure to find. May the New Year bring each of you great joy and success!

Don't Shoot!

Yeah, here is a true boy story. About two weeks ago we had a mission farewell in sacrament meeting. The kids had the wiggles so to help them pay attention, I told them that I would quiz them after each speaker. They were intrigued and so the challenge began. The soon-to-be-Elder gave a nice talk about some of the silly things he and his friends had done, and how he avoided serious trouble in his life because they were good influences on him. Among those silly things were driving through a drive-thru backwards and shooting the lights off of Christmas trees. He then went on to talk about great missionaries in the scriptures, including Ammon. He went into the hole chopping off of the arms of robbers thing (which I assumed was captivating to young boy). At the end of the talk, as promised, I asked the kids what they had learned. Madison told me that Ammon was a faithful man who was a great missionary because he was humble and faithful. What a great listener! Then I asked the Maggot. I asked him what the missionary has talked about. He looked really thoughtful for a second or two. Then his eyes lit up, he got very animated and he responded "Oh! I learned that you can shoot the lights on a Christmas tree out with a BB gun!!" Yeah. Definitely NOT the take home message!

Barnes & Noble Singers

On Saturday, the kids school held a fundraiser at Barnes & Noble. Clifford the Big Red Dog was in attendance, which was kind of exciting for the kids. The elementary class sang three lovely songs. Two were about the wind and fall weather, and the third was Johnny Appleseed. It was so fun to see them share their talents! They also got to display their fall artwork in the store windows. Madison and Jace's were together right at the store entrance!

Waiting for Pain!

Well, now that H1N1 has peeked and appears to be on the down slide, the government has made the vaccine available. Sounds about right..... Due to Jace's IgA deficiency, we felt it important to have him vaccinated. He fit the criteria to be among the first in Idaho Falls, but because it was first come first served, we (my friend Amberly and her cutie Abby came with us) decided to be there PLENTY early. The clinic opened at 2 pm, so we planned to be there at noon. Luckily Amberly had watched the news the night before. She called me at 9 am to tell me to be ready in an hour! Pocatello had done their shot clinic the night before and 3000 people showed up! Long story short, we grabbed blankets, snacks and chairs and joined the line about 10 am. We were 4 hours early and there were already 50 people or so in front of us. It was a line like I have never seen (especially considering it was for shots!) There were over 2600 people in that line and I am so grateful we weren't at the end! They had mostly flu mist and Jace cannot have live virus (due to his lack of antibodies). If we had been farther back in line, we may have wasted our time waiting.

Jace and Abby had a great time together and were amazingly patient! I never heard either one of them complain, whine or comment that they were bored. What great little troupers! The kids have to have another shot in 21 days and Jace is counting down the days until he can "call Abby to get shot" with him.

GROSS!

I came home a couple of days ago, pulled in the drive way, exited my car and when I passed the garbage can, my kids popped out! I screamed; not because they scared me, but because it was do disgusting!! Sick! Will we ever get all the germs off of them?!?

Any Word Will Do

Okay, okay. I know it has been forever and I have a lot of catching up to do, but this struck me as so funny that I had to post it.

Yesterday afternoon I took my kids to the theater to see the Toy Story double feature in 3D. (Which they loved by the way). At one point in the second movie, Buzz was acting strangely, (it escapes me what exactly), and Madison, in that matter-of-fact, grown up way that she has, leaned over to me and said, "Yup, clearly he has lost his balls!".

U-hem, I believe that's 'marbles'!

Whizbang Chicken Plucker

Well, time has marched steadily and rapidly onward since my last blog. The time finally came to "process" the chickens. I am told that the world slaughter is no longer politically correct. Far be it for me to mislabel the process of beheading and bloodletting chickens. Anyhow..... the night before we processed our chickens (who were probably 4 weeks past due, eating nearly 100 pounds of food per day, and so fat they could barely waddle to the grub), Joe built a tub style chicken plucker to speed up the "processing" process. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought a video would be worth million or so. Sit back and watch the feathers fly!!

The Chicken Farm takes Flight

Well, it has begun. The first steps in our family becoming more self-sufficient have been taken.. Wednesday we bought 100 chicks; 90 for poultry, 10 for laying. The yellow chicks should be ready to butcher in about 10-12 weeks. The hens will be producing by the end of the summer (hopefully). If anyone needs eggs, let me know. Our hens should produce roughly 3000 eggs per year. (That's 250 dozen for those of you trying to do the math.) So far, so good. We have had no chicken deaths! Not bad for a girl who has no clue what she is doing!! Next project........ building a chicken coop!

Cabin Views

We spend this past weekend at our cabin! Yeah! We haven't been able to do much of that lately. Hopefully that will all change for us now. Anyway, it was lovely and peaceful and oh, so relaxing! There is still about 2 1/2 feet of snow left! Jace was so eager to get there and get it shoveled. He matched shovel-fulls with his Daddy! He is a snow-moving-machine!

Ahhhh, Cute!

We went to the movies for family home evening a while ago. Joe and I were bringing up the rear. We had a wonderful view as we watched our little darlings walking to the show!