My Photographer and the Bus

I have been very impressed with some of Alexis pictures that she takes with her phone. Some are very artistic while others have a almost humorous side to them.

Today she had a chance to put her skills to work. She took a few pictures of an accident that took place in our neighborhood, she was quite the little photo journalist. And I let her use the big girl camera, not just her phone.

This is my neighbors BACK yard, and that is Alexis's school bus...

This is where Alexis sits when she rides the bus... next to the Emergency Exit, note the piece of fence that is stuck through the window and about 6 inches into the other side.

The absolute amazing thing is that no one was hurt. The bus had just dropped off the last of the kids, so he was the only one on the bus. He was dazed but appeared to be OK, no one knows yet what happened to poor Herold that caused him to do this. Jill Orton had just called her kids inside who were playing in that area, and Jennifer Crutchfields family was in the house, except for Kylee who was walking home with Brittany after school when this happened.

The bus just missed their home. What a mess, but what a blessing.

Courtney thinks the whole thing is cool, she said nothing like this ever happens in our neighborhood, this is cool, well cool cuz no one got hurt and they have a BUS IN THEIR BACK YARD!

Late Night Ninja’s

After returning home from Bear Lake we discovered that while we were gone we had a few new guests living on the property. A VERY large black wasp nest was hanging in our front tree. These are not normal wasps, they are FREAKING MEAN! I know because we had one several years ago.

When I looked them up on the web this is what I found:

The Bald faced Hornet is a black wasp with white lines across its abdomen. This wasp is also very aggressive when provoked. Bald Faced Hornets build their nests on structures or hang them from the branch of a bush or tree. The nest is a grayish paper nest that often is said to look like a 16" softball or in some cases a basket ball. The protective paper envelope contains two or three levels of egg chambers inside and numerous(150 to 300)workers. These nests must be approached with caution. Protective clothing is recommended when treating a nest. As with Yellow Jackets, a Bald Faced Hornets nest must be injected with an insecticidal dust or treated with wasp freeze to be effectively eliminated.

With that knowledge I made sure extreme caution was taken. We waited until around 11 at night, Brittany outfitted with a high powered flashlight and Alexis and I armed with 3 cans of Black Flag Wasp spray. We crept like 3 ninja's in the night up to the tree, Brittany flashed the light on the hive, with a bit of hesitation (she thought they would come out to get her) and then BAM! Alexis and I started to spray aiming for the hole in the hive. As bees started to drop out we knew we were doing our job. All three cans were unloaded on that hive. It is still hanging in the tree, as a warning to the rest of the bees.. Don't Even Think About It!

Kyle Quote of the Day

Kyle likes to have a bag of cereal for his ride to daycare. Yesterday he picked my Kellogg's Vanilla Almond Cereal. I warned him as I handed him his bag that he may not like it because it has nuts, he did not care.

I heard him behind me munching on that cereal most of the way to the daycare center. When we were a few minutes away he said "mom, I no like it, it has nuts" I told him to hold onto the bag until we get out of the truck, and then I would get it from him.

When we arrived at the daycare I opened his door, unbuckled his seat and picked him up to lift him out of the truck. To avoid hitting our door into the car next to us I held him against me and moved around the door and as I did he loudly exclaimed

"MOM YOUR SQUISHING MY NUTS!"

"What!? What did you say Kyle?"

"my nuts!" he said holding up his bad of cereal.

"ummm, oh, sorry..." What else could I say?

I have been a bit busy and I will post more about my summer activities later, but if you do not follow my sisters blog than you can read up on my summer on her site and see a few cute pictures of the kids as well.

Shameless: Summer Recap

Max

Yesterday I agreed to take in a beautiful Rag Doll Kitty named Max. He is one of Melanie's kitty's and he thinks he is the Alfa Kitty, and is beating up on the her other two. So I have agreed to, lets say, "take him off her hands" for a trial period of two weeks... or longer, if I can make it.
Did I say he is absolutely beautiful, and sweet, nice, well behaved, well he is, I keep telling myself that too.
But deep down inside I am not a pet kinda person. I like our rat, she is sweet, nice and well behaved too and even cute in her own way, she is also in a cage.
Max wandered through the house last night when he arrived and checked everything out. He appeared to be very content. That was last night.
I went to work and left Alexis at home alone with the big kitty, honestly how hard it is to get along with a new kitty?
Apparently harder than I thought.
When I came home at lunch Max was hiding under my bed, according to Alexis she vacuumed and it scared him. I called him a few times and he came out to say hi. I thought all is well and I returned to work.
I was there about 15 min when I got a call, "MOM! Max pushed Taylor's cage off the cabinet onto the floor and it is a good thing Taylor was hiding or he would have gotten her!" Ok, my first thought was actually... well good kitty! No worries about small critters in the house, but then I felt bad for Taylor. We are less than 24 hours into this little adventure and we have already had a CATastrophe, ok I know that was bad.

Wish us luck.

The Saga of the Centipede

Let me paint the picture of the poor little centipede's last few minutes of life.

It is around 11:30 pm. Courtney and Brittany are fighting, who knows what about. Brittany hits Courtney, and Courtney having had enough of the "unacceptable behavior" from Brittany in return hits her back. Now if any of you know the story of the last time Courtney hit Brittany back, well lets just say I ended up taking Britt to the Dr because her nose would not stop bleeding. But tonight this is how it went down...Brittany in return does what she is know to do in cases like this... screams a lot, cries, and then calls her dad. Mean while Courtney asks for help to make her bed, the top bunk can be hard to make, it's late and I want the fighting to end sooner than later so I help out. While I am working on one end of the bed Brittaney ends her call with her dad, hangs up and realizes she has a bloody nose, at this point she declares that she is having the "worst day EVER!" she then gets up and goes into her bathroom.

I then notice that there is a little Garden Centipede crawling across the floor. The second one of the day, the first one Brittany vacuumed up. Brittany with her bloody nose can not do anything about it, and Courtney will not go near it (note* Court is deathly scared of ANT's, no it's true.) The little guy wonders under the closet door into Brittany's side and Courtney is fine with that.

As we continue to work on the bed he then emerges out from under the closet and starts heading for Courtney's side of the room. This is where the mayhem begins.

Courtney with the fear that her life is going to end is now in a full panic that this thing is going to get on her stuff! I being a good mom see this as a "teaching moment" and say "If your room did not have stuff on the floor you would not have to worry about spiders and things crawling on it."

The teaching moment continues with a fear factor lesson, if I kill it then how will you get over this fear... "Courtney just get a shoe and kill it." Still shrieking as if a limb is being yanked from her body she turns a pale shade of white and shakes her head "no... no...." "Just do it, you will be fine" Brave Courtney picks up a flip flop and with all the courage in her entire body whacks the little crawling creature.. now you and I know that when you hit the soft cushioned carpet with a flip flop that the object you just whacked will simply take air, and not die... she did not know this. Courtney ran from the room screaming, arms flapping and crying hysterically.

Meanwhile in the bathroom Brittany is laughing, while her nose is still bleeding, and dripping into the sink, she is enjoying the bitter revenge that is taking place for getting hit.

Alexis who went to bed 30 minutes prior to this but has had to listen to all of this from her adjacent room is now so frustrated she gets up out of bed, grabs a shoe and finds the centipede and beats it to death. Then takes toilet paper and picks it up, trows it away and goes back into her room.

The bed is made, the nose stops bleeding and Courtney's color returns to her face. All is well. Except for that little centipede.

Just for Wayne

Here you go, and you don't even have to hunt for it!