Fish Cleaning

Jack loves to go fishing and he loves to eat fish. This year he has clearly connected the fish that we eat with the fish they catch. This curiosity has lead to him wanting to see the fish get cleaned. Tonight we sent Nick out fishing while we stayed in and watched The Incredibles. After the movie was over, we took a long bath and it ended up he was up late enough for Nick to get home with a fish to clean. When I told him, he acted like I told him his birthday had come early. I was leery of allowing him to see this. But as I've mentioned before, we believe in being direct with him. I watched with anticipation as Nick started the whole process. I took some pictures from inside not wanting to disturb their moment. He was not phased in the slightest. In fact, he came in and announced that he needed to see that every time. I was glad that I was wrong about him freaking out at the process. Tomorrow night we dine on it!

I love to read

But chances you who are reading this blog know that. If you haven't done so, please join me on Goodreads. I love seeing what other's think of what they are reading. Since joining Goodreads, my reading has most likely tripled. I have read 41 books so far in 2012. This means that I have tons of my soap on my DVR (19 to be exact). Hoping you are enriching your life by enjoying print!

I was born in a small town

And I used to live in a small town and now I visit a small town.

Each time I return to Alliance, I always revel at how different it is from where I now call home.

A trip to the grocery store is almost guaranteed to be a social experience.

When one grocery store doesn't have what you are looking for, you only have one other option. Really, the stores there don't all carry broccoli florets!

The wait list for the books at the library are virtually non-existent. I was able to get two books that I have been waiting since May 31st to read and am not even in the top ten on the cue. Heck, they only have 3 people in line for 50 shades and all the audiobooks were available!

The drive from the town to the country generally takes less time than it takes me to get to Chick-fil-a from my house.

Errands are done in a 1/4 of the time. I kept showing up early to things because I incorrectly estimated how long each stop would take.

The paper comes daily in the perfect size for nightly reading including the comics and Sudoku puzzle. This also serves as the way to keep up on the local gossip with marriage and divorce announcements, court and police reports, and articles submitted to brag on their children.

While I can never imagine moving back and giving up the conveniences that city life has to offered, I've come to see the appeal that it holds for people.

Below is that small town as it greets me after almost 600 miles of driving!

Spiderman

We were at Redbox the other day when I saw that they had put the 2002 Spiderman release out. I thought that Jack might like it and so we rented it. He has become absolutely enthralled with it. He purchased himself a mask from the store and Grandma Teri bought him a shirt to help the costume. The next day, he decided that he needed a web shooter. We went Dollar General to find something that would work. While we were there, we found a cool Spiderman folder for his "homework". We also settled on a kite string for his web. He has had a blast building webs. He and Grandma Teri had a blast pretending she was the Green Goblin and he was trapping her in his web. The first pic below is one we built together and the others are of their session together.

Never what you expect

Yesterday, Valerie, Angel, Macie, and Austin invited Jack to join them at the Great Wolf Lodge for a day of swimming fun. I thought that this would be ideal because then we could start on our road trip to my mom's and he would be exhausted and would falls asleep early on.

We grabbed dinner from Chick-fil-s and a corndog from QT (I guess all the swimming made him hungry) and we were on our way. I kept thinking that if look back and he's be snoozing. Nope about every 20 minutes he'd pop off his headphones and ask me some Spiderman question. This went on until almost midnight! Of course that means while we got a good chunk of the drive done last night, he was awake for the majority of it.

When I finally convinced him to try sleeping, I gave him a little travel pillow I keep in the car. He looks at it and asks me "Is this a ring pillow?" :)

Here is what I was hoping to see sooner than I did:

Family Games

We love games of all sorts. We enjoy watching sporting events, playing sports in our backyard, and playing all sorts of board, dice, and card games. I have always loved games. I remember Saturdays as a kid, my mother, her best friend, and I would each put different games in a hat. We would pull them out and play the day away. We were even playing on December 23, 1989 when she went into labor with my brother. When Mom and Blas moved in, we spent many weekends playing cards. Nick and I spent many days of our relationship playing games all day. We met our friends the Norman's because of our love for games. We have now passed this love onto Jack. Everything is easier if it is a game. He is likely to challenge you to a game of Neighbor if you have some down time with you. Now that we are at my parents we play all sorts of game too. My mom and I love to play cribbage and Jack wants in on the action. He has created his own version that we can easily play with us. He also enjoys playing UNO. Last night, we played our four games and I was kicking tail. Then came the final round. Jack had such a good time attacking me with Draw Fours and Draw Twos. I've put a picture of the scorecard so you can see the devastation for yourself.

My Handy Husband

I am so thankful that Nick is handy. I can't imagine what we would do without that vital skill. He really knows no bounds from replacing our Central Air to fashioning some sort of basketball game for Jack. His latest thing was to install a ceiling fan in our kitchen. This extreme early heat has made my desire to be the kitchen even less than normal. Nick and I got talking about how nice it would be to have air movement in the room and so it was born. Now, we are able to be in the kitchen without being stifled to death. I love it. I have no idea why it took us 8 summers to do it! We've also decided to lower our ceiling fan in the living room. Of course, he likes to take a break occasionally. Last night he went out fishing, only to have our wheel blow out and lose our bearing. They had to drive it several miles which ruined the wheel and axle. So now he's working on his next project! Hopefully he can get it done in time for us to take the boat out for the 4th!

Unless I get this fixed, I'll go crazy

Jack has taken, for about the last 6 months, to saying unless when he means if. I'm not sure how to help him. I'm currently trying shouting "if" at him each time he says unless incorrectly. I tried ignoring, which might have made it worse. It's really strongly in his brain incorrectly. Yesterday, we were making up silly versions to If You're Happy and You Know It. He had been singing along correctly, but when he went to offer a suggestion he said "Unless You're Happy"... If you have any idea to help remap his brain, I'm all ears!