silly fish tales

Yes I have a tremendous preoccupation with the fish. I have been treating all my fish with a broad spectum parasite and bacteria killer. I got a new male guppy over the weekend and 3 cory cats and 3 shrimp that are in my 2nd tank with the one surviving shrimp. The medicine I put in the water has a net and sponge life preserver thing that helps it float above the water. I was looking for the new guppy this morning and finally found it caught in the net! How he did that I don't know but he was alive and it was tricky getting him out. SO then at 11 I was looking at the tank again and was looking for our two biggest new fish. They are dwarf gouramis but they about 3 inches wide and 4 inches long. I couldn't find the biggest guy. He is the biggest fish and I didn't see him anywhere until I saw something sticking out of the plastic hollow tree trunk. He was stuck. He was really really stuck but still alive. I couldn't figure out how to get him out at all. I thought popsicle sticks might help. Hannah and I ate a fudgesicle as fast as we could. I tried with one first and it didn't work and then I tried two to gently grab him and tug gently. He was terribly stuck. I pulled on the back half of his body and he made it out but boy is he bruised and traumatized. He looks awful. I think he was stuck awhile. I don't see how he got there in the first place. But he will be lucky if he survives his recovery.

This morning and late night was so obnoxious. We got a car pool figured out for Kelsea and Amber to get to seminary and school together. I got a call from my friend saying that she is hearing rumors that seminary is at our church rather than the seminary building. She told me that days ago and I talked to someone and then she told me it again. So after 9 last night we are trying to call the people in charge to find out. We never got a call from anyone regarding seminary. No luck so we set our plan to go to the seminary building and check there first. THen Amber gets a call and finds out her zero hour class starts later because of it being the first day of school. Our car pool has to be reconfigured a little. It worked out. Kelsea's ride was late. Lee Joe picked up another boy to be picked up at our house and was about to take them to seminary. Their only problem(Our car pool people) was they had a hard time finding our house in the dark. They took Kelsea and Chris in the end. I took Amber to school when I went to pick up the seminary kids. That worked out fine. Kelsea told me that the three of them from our ward were not on their roll at all. Then I got home to get Kylee and Autumn ready. Hannah's first day is tomorrow. That saved me one more trip to the schools today. So everyone survived their first day that went today. Amber has homework in every class. But she was glad to have opted out of AP history. Her friend has it with the other classes Amber does have and her backpack broke from the weight of her books. I haven't seen Kelsea yet. She has volleyball and is hanging out with friends until then.

I didn't sleep but maybe 2 hours last night so today has been kind of rough. I was in bed but couldn't sleep. I am under some tremendous stress but I still can't say much more, it is just not good at all. When I stay lost in fish and kids I am somewhat all right. But not really. I can't talk about it online or in person. So again I am sorry.

Geez Louise!

Pluto licked Kelsea. I guess he liked her.

Maybe it will calm down just a little bit when school starts. Maybe. Probably not. We have had so much the past week and the last 2 days were the craziest. We got our back to school shopping done Monday and Tuesday. I think I actually stayed home a little Weds. Weds night we all went and saw Evan Almighty after 9pm. It was a very good family movie. We all liked it. Hannah loved it.

We have had a bit more trouble with the fish tank so that has been another preoccupation for me. We have decided that fish aren't pets. They are a hobby. We have been getting our fish at Petsmart and Petco. I think we got some fish with a disease that has just spread through the other fish. Hannah named one of the Guppies and it died and that is the only fish she has cried over. We still have two babies though. I accidentally killed one of the shrimp I believe the other one is hanging in there. We will get a few more of them. The kids really like them. We have some new fish tonight. Bigger fish than we have tried and hopefully hardier.

Kelsea had Volleyball tryouts this week. She was so nervous about not making Varsity because she didn't last year. She made varsity and she is SOOO happy. Much better weekend for us that the one we had last year where she was in bed all weekend.

The 3 youngest got to find their desks and meet their teachers today. Hannah got to check out the kindergarten room toys. Hannah is excited and Kylee and Autumn are nervous a little. Hannah is still 2 wheeling but last night the tire popped on her bike while she was riding it. I guess it was loud and pretty scary. So Lee Joe has more bikes still to doctor up.

I don't think there is much in the way of allergies right now but I have had the worst allergies the past few days. Today I am having a hard time breathing even after allergy medicine. Ugh.

We had the intent to get Amber her license this week but there was just too much to do and it didn't happen yet.

I am not ready for school to start!! Monday is the day though.

Things are back in school mode

UGH. I don't want it to happen at all. The two oldest registered for school this week. Amber had band camp. She is liking it a bunch. Kelsea starts volleyball this week. We went swimming once. The pool closest to us is closed now.

Our Neon is still healthy. We had one fish die last week. It was a guppy. It probably wasn't healthy when we bought it. But we had two babies born. We must have bought pregnant females. They are big enough to see now without searching and are getting brave about swimming about the tank. We haven't brought home any new fish. We are waiting at least until our babies are big enough to not get eaten by something bigger. Then the next babies we will probably need to thin out.

Hannah learned how to ride her bike yesterday without training wheels. And she loves it!! But she had a big crash and the pedal broke on her bike. But a few hours later she was out on it again.

I would post more trip pictures but my Kodak picture software is corrupting pictures. They are still good on the memory card though.

a quote from my child

One of my children has a knack for finding unusual quotes and then sharing them-the more disgusting the better I suppose- with her friends--
"Love is like a booger, you keep picking at it until you get it, then wonder what to do with it."
I believe that leaves me with nothing left to say.

Yay!

We still have 6 fish. 5 guppies and a neon. Poor lonely neon. I told Lee Joe it would probably survive because they need to be in a school. He didn't believe me but its still swimming healthy like. The guppies are friendly to it. At least we don't have to bury the dead fish. It would become quite a grave yard out there.

Hannah meets her teacher today. Kelsea got some shots yesterday and her arms hurt all day. Amber did well with band camp yesterday. I guess she is loud and that is a good thing.

They're back!

It was a very peaceful week without the 2 oldest. They came home exhausted. Amber had to give a talk today and Kelsea came home sick. But it sounded like a good experience. I had one of the leaders that the girls babysit for in another ward tell me that our girls were great on the handcart trek they did on Friday. It sounds like they were awesome. There is a 7th grade boy that has a serious crush on Kelsea but I knew that from the school I worked at but he spent a lot of time with Kelsea on the trip, driving her nuts. Amber's admirer spent the day with her and Kelsea and Amber's friend Andrea at Lagoon. But Amber wouldn't dance with him at the dance. She got in a little trouble from us when we found out. He prank called their room very badly one night. Not very anonymous.

So the demands are back. I don't give in to them all. Amber starts band camp this week and I have a busy week as well. Yuck. And I have 3 kids and a husband with an intestinal flu. Must be from our terrible eating habits and exhaustion from our trip. We are all still dragging and unmotivated. We got a giant beanbag thing in the family room and the girls are taking turns sleeping on it and having a great time with it. We get to get rid of a very worn out sofa now.

We failed with the neon tetras. Too delicate I guess for a beginning tank. We have upped our neon count to 10 twice and only have one left today. But we got guppies. We lost one but the other 5 look healthy and are entertaining. The ghost shrimp are thriving and fun to watch when they come out of hiding.

School starts on the 27th but it might as well be this week. Kelsea will start volleyball next week. I am not READY!! We have hardly been swimming this year. I haven't even finished any projects, just tore my house apart. The lawn is dieing. There is a shed where it doesn't belong still. Too many things undone and it won't get better when school starts. Ok, I have PMS. I am a little snarly. And not all is really well in our world but I won't go into any details, sorry. So I will tell you the better stuff.

tank woes

I have done all that I have learned how to make a safe tank environment for fish. But we have started with neon tetras. We started with six 2 days ago. One died. I got 5 more and when we came home another one had died. So we had 9. This morning we are at 6 alive but will probably be at 5 before mid afternoon. One that died we can't find. We have two ghost shrimp and they are entertaining and still alive. I have read that some people don't have good luck with neon tetras But I guess I need to do more research or just try some more hardy fish.

I read Harry Potter on the trip. I passed Kelsea up on day one of our drive and she got frustrated with me. I finished it and Kelsea got determined to finish too. She finished it Monday night so she was pretty sleep deprived when she had to get up at 5am for the girls youth trip to Salt Lake. They were at the church at 5:30 on Weds. So it is just the three youngest and and I during the day. Makes things pretty quiet.

I am hoping to recover the house from our trip mess but we are still trying to get over our trip. The fish have been a pretty big distraction for us all. It will get there.

trip pics

The big reveal!!!

I think Devanie beat me to the punch but yes, we went to Disneyland for 3 days, Universal Studios, Sea World and the San diego Zoo. We got a fantastic at Costco for the southern California City Pass. $200 for and adult pass-Kylee was considered an adult at 10. A 3 day pass to Dineyland by itself was $170. The trip was exhausting. But great fun. I need to clean out the bad pictures on the camera but we took about 1000 pictures. But I know there are bad ones.

We didn't tell the kids until they were all in the car and we had dropped Lee Joe's car off to get fixed. And it was cooler there than here. But humid.

We started off going to San Francisco to make the trip interesting. We walked around pier 39. Drove through downtown and found our motel. The next day we drove down the coastline. It was beautiful. We saw elephant seals and some were "fighting" in the water. We got to LA late. Found our motel within walking distance of Disneyland. Bright and early we hit the park. Did you know there are not enough places to sit in Disneyland? We went on the worst ride to start out our Disneyland experience. We went on the Indiana Jones ride. Hannah was traumatized somewhat and we were all really jumpy after that. But it was a really fun ride. Hannah struggled a little bit after that. I made Lee Joe go to some little kid rides. We all went on the small world ride. Hannah loved it. All the rest of them went nuts.
We got two more days at Disneyland and California adventure. We had to rent a wheelchair for Kylee. There is something really wrong with her feet and they got really swollen and put her in tears. She has a high pain tolerance. It helped a lot.

Day 4 was Universal studios. We liked the tour ride and the Waterworld stunt show but really it is geared more towards older kids. There were rides and things we didn't see and we were fine with that. We saw the Hollywood sign and drove down Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Blvd. We saw the Kodak theatre and weren't impressed with the area around the most famous parts.

Day 5 was Sea World. We all loved it. Most of us got to touch a dolphin and starfish and rays. We loved the shows. That was the day we got toasted. Kylee's feet recovered and she walked fine that day.

Day 6 was the San diego Zoo. We liked that too but didn't even see it all. But we saw Pandas and Koalas. We liked that too.

We did all the parks and we wanted to check out the ocean before we went home. The kids and Lee Joe all plyed in the water until each of them got a mouth full of salt water and it made them sick and killed the fun but they enjoyed it still. The temperature was perfect and the water was warm.

We thought since we were so close to border that we would check it out. I really didn't want to cross the border but Lee Joe always wants to do more than I want to do. We crossed, walked a little in Tijuana, about got seriously overcharged for souvenirs. The girls weren't impressed, I had an anxiety attack. Then we got in line to get back across the border. It was an hour wait. I didn't have my regular wallet with me and had nothing on me for ID for the girls and border guard was a grumpy guy. He acted like we weren't going to be able to cross and got offended by something Lee Joe said. I had to talk our way through and told him I would go to the car and get our pictures and their medical cards then he finally let us through. Lee Joe thought it was a great experience. Weirdo. I could have done without it all. It was the only sour note on the trip besides Lee Joe's do it all grumpy impatience we dealt with at Disneyland. Part of why we walked too much the first day. He didn't want to wait 2 hours for the finding nemo submarine ride on our 3rd day. But we waited and all the girls liked it a lot. He had a hard time waiting for the rides that were the best for Hannah. I was able to do a few things for just her an I on the last day at Disneyland. The 4 oldest girls went on the Tower of Terror and Lee Joe felt he had to it even though he didn't want to. He said it was awful and the 4 older girls loved it.

But it was the first real long family vacation we have had and we sure packed a lot in the time we had. Now I have to do all the laundry and do a hundred other things today I have to send Amber abd Kelsea off early tomorrow morning. So the pictures will come a little later this week.

I really liked Disneyland.

Goodbye!

I would say all the good byes from the sound of music but I would rather not spell all those other language good byes. I am having a hard enough time spelling english words correctly. So we are leaving bright and early tomorrow morning. I need to get the oil changed. And a few more errands done. We still haven't told the kids where we are going. We will tell them in the morning. We won't be back until Aug 6. Then that leaves me one day to do the laundry and have the 2 oldest repack for their Utah trip the next day. We haven't been gone that long since my Connecticut trip when Hannah was 18 months old! This is the first time since our trip to Nevada back when we only had Amber and Kelsea that we will gone that long with Lee Joe too. He gets his first REAL vacation. He needs one. He has been leaving around 6 or 7am all week and getting home after 10pm most nights this week. Last night it was 11:00. He has been helping his very good buddy do dirt work around the house he is having built in Nampa. That is around 30-40 minutes from us. He is exhausted and keeps on going. I don't think we are going to come rested at all though.

SHHHH

I didn't post these-

I spent the afternoon and evening (till 10:30) getting skirts, aprons and bonnets made for the pioneer trek thing they are going on when we get back. Amber and Kelsea helped a bunch and sewed some too. They didn't want me putting these up on my blog so shhh! The bonnet pattern I used had a huge brim. They look more like flying nuns. These are their model-ish poses.

This week--

Well, we set up an aquarium this weekend. At first it looked awful how we set it up and today rearranged things ,I put a few more things in it and was trying to figure out why the water got cloudy. It will be two weeks before we get our first fish. It is already a costly hobby but once we get going on it should be spending next to nothing.

Kelsea and I went to get the new Harry Potter book on Saturday. She is reading it, I am trying to resist because there is too much on my to do list. The girls also got a Phantom of the Opera piano and lyrics book and they have been playing/singing it for 3 days now.

We are planning a special secret trip. All the girls know right now is we are leaving on Saturday and will be gone a week. So I won't be around to write and read everyones blog. And you will have to wait and see what our special tip is. Our hairdresser gave some huge hints to Amber and Kelsea by accident. So no spilling the beans. I told Kelsea that it is cooler than here. With the exception of Utah, Nevada and Arizona-that could be anywhere.

sort of bummed

We missed Ty and the crew out in Middleton. I am bummed and Kelsea is bummed too. Too many appointments Tues and Weds and it was still stinking hot. Today it cooled off. My big joke was it is cold with a high of 92! It was so pleasant today.
Kelsea had her first physical therapy visit on her ankle. No wonder I didn't want to schedule that appointment. Now we are in for it some more. 3 days of therapy a week for a month. Since I don't swear #&#%#%#&$(*&#&%)*$%#)($%?>":#$*#$&#$&%*(#&# Pretend those were a slew of a bunch of bleeps over horrible words people don't want to hear.

The latest

I am finally feeling better. Hooray! Almost 3 weeks of sick is no fun. I thought I might have lost a little weight and my neighbor says she thought so too. I stayed up till 3am Sunday/Monday shampooing carpets and getting other things done. Finally got the coolers out to the garage. I have also this week replaced and hung blinds in three rooms now and hung a new curtain rod and put our aquarium stand together. We have a ceiling fan in one of three rooms we need to hang one in. With this 100 degree heat we need them upstairs. So Kelsea is enjoying hers. I was able to finally disinfect both bathrooms. I think I am finally getting motivated enough or at least feeling well enough that the kitchen is about to get worked on again.

I got great deal on a camera today. I was shopping for a kodak camera so I could use my picture printer with it still. They had one on clearance at target for $139 it was origionally a 199 camera. Then they took another 30% off since it was the display model. So I got it for $99!!!
It is an 8.0mp I think my other camera is maybe around 4. Kelsea is taking photography this year and she will need a camera anyway so woohoo for me!! She still takes my camera all the time. She took my camera phone the other day and took pictures of arms and legs in positions that made them look like butts. You never know what she is up to next or what the backround might be on my phone.

where are the pics?

I tried to post some last night and blogger or my computer wouldn't let it happen. I will try again later.

It's late BUT--

Kelsea and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. It is really not like us to see a movie just a few days into it's release but she has been counting down the days and she is counting down the days to when the last book comes out. She actually has read all the books and so have I . The movie was really good. What's not good is when you have read the book you know what's coming. And when it's over you realize all the important stuff they left out but over all it was a very well done movie. And we needed something like that to end this miserable week with.

I have not been able to watch movies in a long time. For one I am usually too busy. Half hour and one hour shows occasionally is all I have had time for in the evenings. And I hate getting interrupted watching movies during the day. I had to pause The Devil wears Prada about 10 times when I watched that a few weeks ago. They kids can leave me alone all day until I don't want to be bothered. But we are trying Netflix just for the summer. I remember now that I really like to watch movies. One of the really good ones we just watched was Stranger than Fiction. Movies are a great thing to do when it is 104 outside. When is the heat going to end!! Netflix is awesome because I don't have to leave the house.

Shrek the 3rd is in the cheap theatre now. So maybe we will head out to see that next week.

Amber's camp ended today. Unfortunately the time that the last day program was suppose to start was miscommunicated. I missed half of the program and only saw the group of drum majors do one of their 3 routines and missed the drum corp and saw 1/4 of the color guards routine. I did see one of Amber's fellow drum majors from her school get a trophy. And they mentioned how caring he was and how he informed them when one of the other drum majors (Amber) was sick and wasn't there. AWWWW. Amber helped him earn his trophy. Then Amber and Kelsea volunteered themselves to help at a scout daycamp a few weeks back. I guess they got some vounteer hours in but I had to drive them there and back. I don't even think it was our stake's scout camp. Hey! Where's my credit for vounteer hours? So in the end after I took Amber shopping for her party and took her to it and bought my really good friend a couple of cakes and ice cream for her birthday and took it to her because her husband is in China, and made a real dinner for the first time this week, I took Kelsea and myself to a movie. How's that for time for me! Lee Joe stayed home with the kids, collected Amber and got some more recovery sleep. He is still struggling to recover as well. Working out in this extreme heat isn't helping him at all.

Aren't you glad you aren't here at my house listening to me ramble on like this. My fingers are as chatty as my mouth would be at this hour. Good night!

reunion and aftermath

We left for the reunion on Friday. We met everyone and had pictures done at a pond down the road from Devanie's house. The kids caught some catfish and some mosquitoes caught my girls. I think Amber was the sweetest with Kylee in second.

Saturday was the big Lagoon day. We planned it right by going into the waterpark first. We all got tubes and had a good time. There was a line to get in for hours later. Of course that was the hottest time of the day. We cycled kids around and at one point I had Claire, Andrew, Hailey and Sierra. Claire started getting a tummy ache. But she was determined to go on the rides. She said when she was on the ride she was fine. Standing in line it hurt. I had her cool off in the fountain. I was hoping she wasn't overheated. But we went to where our stuff was and within a half an hour she was throwing up. She was sick the rest of the day. Poor thing. Everyone stayed busy and poor grandma spent most of the rest of the day nursing Claire and helping with Aurora. And Devanie spelled her off when she went with Nathan for food. We need to make a special trip with Grandma so she can have some fun.

Sunday the flu hit some more. Poor Devanie and then Sierra and Claire was still afflicted. We visited and packed and then in the afternoon the power went out. We left for home after our whirlwind weekend. I have some pictures but I need to locate the camera.

Monday I shopped and then Tuesday the flu caught up with Amber and I. Amber has had drum major camp all week. She couldn't afford to miss any time there but missed the morning and evening session. I was flat on my back all day. It was the nastiest flu I remember having for quite some time. I thought I was better Weds. Not so. Amber made it to camp all day though and came home with blue turf in her shoes. They were marching on the BSU football field. They are having a performance on Friday. Kylee caught the flu sort of Tuesday eveing and Weds. And Lee Joe had it Weds and missed work. He still feels kind of bad today but he is at work. The rest of the kids have watched movies and stayed home all week. Kelsea is pet sitting and will be babysitting today and tomorrow morning. We will see which kids have yet to come down with the flu. Friday and Saturday are our next days to watch.

My favorite show of all time is rebuilding a house 30 minutes away from us. Extreme Home Makeover is in Middleton. I am tempted to make a trip there to check it out and see Ty in person. I will let you know if we are flu free and time released to check it out. The other big drawback is it is suppose to be over 100 degrees the whole time they are here. We will see what see what happens. Pictures are coming!!

Lee Joe's b-day

Well I think everyone has fallen off the blogging band wagon. But I will update since it easier to do that than talk. My mouth is having it's worst day yet and I am in miserable pain from it. Yesterday I was so sick I went to take Kelsea to the doctor and asked if I could see one too. I had a UTI. They thought my mouth is in reaction to that but I am not so sure. But I spent the afternoon hunting down the best deal for Lee Joe's birthday present. I was quite miserable and went to 6 stores. I only bought half of what I was suppose to get. But he got a 29 gallon aquarium and a little bit of stuff to go with it. I just didn't get the stand. We went out to BK for dinner. big spenders aren't we? And then went to Petsmart to look at the fish stuff and came home with nothing but an argument. Which was excruciatingly painful for me. Then they all went to Cabellas to look at ther big tanks in there while I sat in the car because I finally could do no more. We came home and had cake and jell-o. I had nothing. But he really liked the aquarium and had no clue. He has wanted one for awhile. So we will see how we do with our new pet adventure.

Not much

Can you believe it? Two days into the week and I can say not much has happened. Except summer school and summer band, and house sitting and one appointment. That amounts to not much. Monday was beautiful with a high of 73. We cleaned the house real quick. The girls finished painting the trim outside and I tore out the sliding glass door in between the dining room and family room by myself and the girls helped me carry it out. I worked a little on the kitchen and bought some tile for one section and stain to figure out what I am doing-I still don't know. Today I was sick or something. My mouth is super sore and I have felt awful. I got the lawn fertlized and pet sat. Made dinner. Got kids where they needed to go. That was it. I watched a movie!! I am sorry but I still need to take pictures of the kitchen. I hope I feel better tomorrow. I need to get Lee Joe's present!! I will let you know what it is when he knows.

Ohhh--Some interesting bit of news. Lee Joe found out about a superintendent position with a big construction company in town. He might try for it. He is qualified for the position and he talked at length with the guy that is hiring for the position. 401K, health insurance! I hope he really goes after it.