Ava Christmas Program

She did great. It was fun to watch and she felt very fancy in her High School Musical flashing robe!

Riddle

I won this riddle at work! You may ask only yes or no questions:

A young woman is whisked away to a far off land, where she kills the first person she meets. Then she teams up with three others to kill again.

Halloween

Miss Cleopatra - Queen of the Nile

Well I have to say that this costume kicked some major butt! Grace is the corpse bride and Ash is tinker bell. We had some rain on Halloween night, but nothing too bad, and it did not seem to deter the kids at all! Luckily Jen knew where to go for the good candy! It has been a real struggle for me to keep my greedy paws out of Ava's candy!

As you can see from the picture on the right, Ash has two black things in her hands. These would be the dreaded scorpion and spider that MOTHER gave them and it was all over her face and hands...which meant that it was all over my hands!! What a mess, but she was soooo pleased! She would not give them up for anything. They fell on the ground a few times and on the sidewalk, none of these were deterrents for getting back into her mouth or her bag.

Last but not least, the diva dancing to "her song".

Ava's Art Gallery

This is coming late....Through the month of September Ava's class learned about various famous artists. They got to try different art projects mimicking the artists. My favorite is the self portrait. We got to go after school to the gallery. Ava was very proud of her work.

Making good use of our adventure gear

We went hiking around pine view last week. The funnest part was that it is apparently bee mating season and Brian was the only one getting swarmed! It was hilarious to say the least! Some of my favorite one liners were: "Bee's 4 Brian 36, and I'm still living" "Ow! That hurt (as he smacked his own leg with a stick) but I got one" "I'm gonna kick your @#*!" "You want a piece of me?" These clips are just a small taste of what he was doing the entire time we were at the lake! Unfortunately I cannot claim that no animals were hurt or killed in these filmings........sorry PETA!

Aside from the bees, Ava found several lady bug
"friends". If you look really close there are two of them.














The girls decided to go for a little swim. What started out as getting their feet wet, quickly became them waist deep in the water.

Nut as usual decided to make a filthy pig of herself! I swear she does it to me on purpose!


All in all it was a really pretty fall day.....but not for the bees!

Antelope Island

We decided to buy the girls all "adventure shoes" (not so cute tennis shoes) at payless and took the girls for an adventure. It was fun, they had a blast climbing all of the rocks with minimal whining. Brain tried to teach the girls how to skip rocks.Ava was in much more of a posing mood today
We even saw some buffalo on the way out.
This last picture is really for Jen, because what is an adventure without some sort of animal carcass....

Pergatory

If you couldn't guess from the title, I am talking about work! To sum up what has kept me from blogging....I have been on the job hunt. Mikey decided to cut my hours down to 30 hours a week, because he is broke! I had two bounced paychecks and a week where I got paid a week late. After he cut my hours, I told him that I would be looking for a new job. The next day he gave me a dollar raise, go figure! We then have been having more wonderful dinner workshops! Well at the last one, I managed to lose my keys. Fact: I do not own a spare key. Fact: Once you have a new key made, your car will still not start without the keyless entry to turn off your car alarm that p.s. does not go off when window is broken. So after searching for my keys for 30 minutes, we proceeded to try to break into my car. I have to say that watching Mikey try to use a hanger to unlock my doors was one of the best things I have ever witnessed! I wish that I could have videoed it! Instead I was at least able to take a picture of the crack that I somehow managed to shove my entire arm through...past the elbow!I don't think after seeing this, that it is hard to see that my arm was stuck! The next day I did have a nice bruise on my forearm and above my elow. These however did not picture well.
Moral of the story.... do not lose your keys at a dinner workshop 1) You are stuck with Mikey for an extra hour 2) You are willing to do impossible things to try to escape 3) He will threaten to make you pay to replace the work locks as your work key is on your key chain!

Return of the King

I know, I have been majorly slacking! However, I am hoping that this super post will begin to redeem me! So I will begin with Ava's B-day. We went to Classic Skating, I am always amazed at how many people do not RSVP to a party! Anyhow, I pretty much chose Classis Skating for myself!Mom also got in on the action!No I am NOT too big! It was pretty fun, of course there are always a few whiners at every party...Fact: Jennifer IS crying after hurting herself. Fact: I am faster than Jennifer (as she is the black bear and I am the brown bear) Fact: One of the little girls that came likes for me to hold her, she is the same way everyday that I drop off Ava to school. She wanted me to hold her the entire party, after about 15-20 minutes I told her that I could not carry her and hold her anymore. At this point she started to limp and cry. So I took her to her mother. Her mother immediately started freaking and got her an ice pack (even after I explained the situation). She then proceeded to keep her home from school the following Monday and took her to the doctor. There was no bruising or swelling and there was no x-ray done, but since she was still limping her mother was pretty sure that she had a bone fracture or a really bad sprain. Whatever!

Note that Ava was refusing to look at the camera for ANY pictures!

So....I began to get crafty and found other things to take pictures of, I thought that this womans dress was stunning!
Note the blonde woman to the left. At first I tried to be stealthy and pretended to take a picture of Brian....Then I got more bold.











What you can't tell from this picture is that the back is about five inches shorter than the front. She is also wearing green eye shadow, lovely gold shows, and festive jewelry to match. I couldn' t help but tell her how much I loved her outfit, I believe that my exact words to her were "to die for". She was thrilled!

Other Random News

To start off with, I am aware that I have been slacking, nothing like my sister Jo, yet still slacking. I have been in Purgatory! Yes, it is dinner workshop time at work again. During dinner workshop time I get to work 12-13 hour days with no overtime! Isn't that illegal you ask, well yes it is! To make it even better, our first workshop was last Thursday, Thursday happens to be payday as well, we got done with the dinner workshop (where keep in mind, us employees do not get to eat dinner) and he informs us that we will not be getting our paychecks today, because there is not enough money in the account! I did not get paid until the following Tuesday, but since we had a dinner workshop that night as well, I did not get to deposit my paycheck because I worked from 7:30 am to 8:30 pm. Mikey is a real gem! On the third workshop night he yelled at me for not bringing the extension cord, which we did not use the previous two dinners - at the same restaurant, so he told me I was irresponsible. I asked him what he would like me to do - as the cord was not imperative to operation, and he told me that he hoped I learned from my mistakes, I could have cost him the entire workshop with my negligence! Aren't you all jealous of my boss!

The first day off after all of this I got to take poor tiny to a random pediatrician for her kindergarten shots which I was told that she didn't need this year, as she is going to private kindergarten early, only to learn one week before school that she does need them. Since everyone is getting theirs at the last minute, and also football physicals....I took the only office that could get her in. To my pleasant surprise, the doctor was great with her and I will choose her in the future. To my bad, I had to make a deal with Ava that if she was brave, I would be brave. She chose to make me hold the snake at Eric's clinic. Have I mentioned I hate snakes!This is the closest I came to actually "holding" the snake. I swear to you I was nauseous and my eyes were tearing up! There may or may not have been a puddle of pee at my feet, you'll never know! Luckily it sufficed Ava! To show me up she put the snake in her basket and tried to skate it around the clinic until Eric put a stop to her fun!

The highlights of that day at the clinic did come in the form of puppies that were just a few hours old. They do make you want one for just a second!



















And to end off with, here is a clip of random spastic dancing that Ava asked me to tape and post!

The vet clinic

We took the girls to Eric's clinic to "help" out. He brought Naughtia to shave, Ava was the only one brave enough to get up there with her.
Even though I severely dislike the cat, it was sad to see her under with a gas mask on!









Grace and Ash also wanted nothing to do with the snakes, I can't say that I blame them there!!!
Beeva la Diva has no fear!

Ava and "Charlay"

Not quite as funny as the first time she watched it.....by the time I got to video it she had already watched it three times before this day as well. However here she is.

The funniest video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

This is what Ava and I watch now in our spare time! Almost as funny as the movie is Ava's reaction!

Enjoy

Who should really sleep in the bed?

Yes, that's right....Peanut is in the beds while the girls are on an air mattress on the floor! And yes Denise....they are matching night gowns, it is time for an intervention!

Neighborhood Luau

We went to Brian's moms neighborhood luau with the girls. I want to zurchers and got them some Hawaiian gear. They were quite pleased with themselves, and all of the attention that they were getting. As soon as we got there, someone asked them if they would get up on the table and dance.These two "very shy" girls jumped at the chance, and after a bunch of random people took pictures of them, I asked it they wanted to get down and get some dinner, and of course Ava politely responded "No thanks, we'll stay up here!" Sometimes she is so humble I wonder if she is Nate's daughter!

This wonderful video ends in a bit of a fight. But, at least I was smart enough to end it before you hear me getting sarcastic and saying "Oh, that's fun! Keep fighting everyone wants to watch you fight!" Although I guess it doesn't matter since I just tattled on myself.

The Zoo

I am a little behind on posting, but we took the girls to the Hogle Zoo last week. What a treat! I 0have come to the conclusion that the zoo is home to every rude idiot, and or mutant in Utah or visiting! Unfortunately we did not see any polygamists, this was a first from my previous zoo visits!
First of all let me just take the chance of sounding like Craiger for a moment, and say that taking five people anywhere is too expensive! By the time you pay for admission, the train, the new carousel, and of course rent a wagon, you are into the day over $60. I also forgot to mention that they did get a McDonald's happy meal on the way to the zoo. So the great part about all of this, is that when you tell them that getting to come was the fun thing that we got to do today, they through a diva size fit that it's not going to be a toy buying day!
















This is the new carousel ride. New excitement to the Hogle Zoo never stops!
The only animal excitement that we did get to witness was at the giraffes. P.S. for those of you who recall the handicap giraffe, he is no longer there! There is no mention of his whereabouts, long live handirafee if he is not already dead! But, as we stood in front of the giraffes for a couple of minutes, one walked all of the way across the pen to pee directly in front of us! I have never smelt anything quite like it, and I hope to never get that close of a shot again!

We did try to put the kids to work at one point and make them pull their own wagon.....it lasted for less than three feet. We decided that from now on they are big enough to walk or they are not big enough to go. The harsh reality of becoming a big kid!

The Job

Well just a positive update on my job.....We had a conference call with a doctor in Seattle that mentors clinics, since he has the biggest clinic like ours in the US. So Mikey was asking him how you close the people that say that they don't have the money right now. The Dr told him some really good advice. Mikey said, "so you don't ever tell them that if they don't sign up today, that they can't come back?" I have never met this other doctor, and I don't know what he looks like, but by the tone of his voice (the what the #$@% voice!) I can see his face in my mind as he said NNNNOOOO! Mikey replied "Really?" and he was genuinely baffled! So he asked again and got the dame response. He then asked again and the Dr told him "why would you ruin a future possibility?" and Mikey just said "Huh." I wanted to smack him! I really had to fight the urge to ask the doctor "So, do you ever tell people that don't sign up that they deserve their pain? Cause we do that a lot!"
Then, today, I almost got fired! One of the other girls did not make the reminder calls last night. he thought that it was my responsibility and screamed at me. Luckily one of the other girls told him that it wasn't on me, it was the other girl and she had reminded her to make the calls before she left for the night. So then he almost fired her. He then took us all into the exam room and screamed at us for a good 20 minutes! After that no one could do anything right in the day so he continued to be a complete ass (sorry, but that is the most appropriate word I could think of) for the rest of the day! He told us that he has no problem firing someone just to make a point. We had a client not show up at 3:00, so I called to see if they were coming, he said that his father-in-law had come in the week before and was treated very badly by the doctor and he wouldn't be coming in. Mikey was furious and yelled "I have never been rude to anyone!" It took everything in me not to pee my pants laughing right in his face! All I can say is that he is a great business man!~

Welcome and Not so Welcome Additions

Well you are looking at it! I finally got a washer and dryer! And the best part is....they were free! Brian's brother is lending them to me, yeah! It is beyond nice not to have to haul my laundry to and from the laundromat anymore!














Ava has also discovered a friend in our back yard. Bethany goes to her school, but she is in a different class. She lives in our complex. They have been outside every night for the last five nights! I now know how Angie felt when they lived in Clearfield next to Alyssa! Yeah! She is a very polite and sweet girl, but the best part is that I'm not having to entertain them!!!!!











And then there is one not so welcome addition! This came by way of the mail, from my "good" sister Jen..... The inside says "Hang loose and "Hoff" a nice day!" It is sick and perverted and I needed there to be documentation of this!