The View From Here

And 'here' would be my hotel room in Albuquerque. JR had the day off today, (I'm still convinced it was for Earth Day) so the kids and I came down yesterday to warm up. And guess what? It's cold here too!

Happy Earth Day to Me

(And yes, you guessed right. I find Earth Day to be completely ridiculous.)

But this *cough, cough* holiday sure showed me. Here's what we woke up to this morning.

Obviously my excitement about a snow free yard was a little premature.

Nothing says spring in Colorado quite like a pair of snow covered flip-flops.

Wouldn't that make a great Country song title? "Snow Covered Flip-flops!"

Lighten up

I'm blogging from a stoplight because I'm so excited about my new highlights! Yipeee!

Reason #46 I Hate To Cook

I always get hurt.

Photo Evidence From Today:

And for an added flair of dramatics, I took the liberty of labeling my injury for you.

Thankfully I don't proclaim to be a good cook, so it makes the way this injury happened a little more bearable.

Ya know the old saying about not being able to boil water? Well, I was able to boil the water. And was even able to pour the boiling water in the sink...but then I somehow lost control of the stupid pot and the top of it (the pot) touched my arm.

Awesome.

Something Exciting Happened Last Night

And it's called....we have no more snow in our yard!

We're still wearing jackets, but now we're only digging in dirt. Woohoo!

And, seriously, don't be jealous of my brown yard.

It's amazing, I know.

Prom

Last night was Harry's prom. JR was furious that he was not going to prom, which is the reason for his absence from the picture. (Harry is in the glasses and Jason's tux vest from Beijing. His friend with him, Tong, is also an exchange student from China.) I was super surprised when Harry told us he was going to prom, and excited that he was going with a group of friends. He then said that a friend at school (who is a girl) had invited him. I started asking him, "Is she your date? Did she just ask you or other people too? Are the others in your group going with dates?" Of course Harry didn't know the answer to any of these questions, and since I live in a house full of boys, nobody else seemed concerned either. I couldn't stand the thought of some cute girl standing there without a corsage and a date that didn't even know he was her date. I quickly reverted back to my 17 year-old-self (which wasn't very hard since that was only 8 years ago...No snickering!) and called our babysitter. In typical high school fashion, she told me she was friends with the girl's brother and would call him and find out the situation. Within a few hours I had confirmation that, yes, they were all going as friends, but Harry wasn't her date.
Crisis averted, but one quickly followed.
We (and I'm sure you know who "we" really was) then had to convince Harry that a Michael Jordan Nike T-shirt and cargo pants were not proper prom attire. I found myself having a total Stacy and Clinton moment pulling outfits from Jason's closet. Or was I Tim Gunn? Either way, I was fabulous. I couldn't have been more excited when Harry was willing to wear the Chinese vest. I did good, right?
As the boys were leaving I gave them a heart-to-heart about how they should dance with the girls who weren't dancing cause the girls would really want to dance. I guess Harry took my advice because he told me he was leading the "dance train", which I'm pretty sure is his translation for conga line. And in my book conga line leader = successful night! Woohoo!

Fun New Games

Tears and hysterics were already abounding by 9:00 AM today. (I remember because I looked at my watch thinking surely it's almost lunch time.) I decided "we" needed to burn off some energy, so we took a little walk around the neighborhood. We brought DeDe along with us, (You might know him by his former name, Hunter. Reed and Kyle started calling him DeDe so that's what he gets called most of the time now.) and they actually were quite willing to share the leash. DeDe might be a fluffy Bichon, but he still weighs more than they do, so he's a lot of work for them. They played many rounds of their new favorite game, Throwing Rocks at the Stop Sign Because it Makes a Really Cool Sound. Unfortunately, they aren't tall enough to hit the sign, so they're really just throwing them at the post...and each other. I was quite sure we were going to have a David and Goliath moment as the rocks were ricocheting about. (Or at least another trip to the hospital.) So to entice them away, I promised them we'd play their other new favorite game when we got home. And before you look at these pictures, please remember we really do have more toys than I even want to think about. I promise, Grandmothers, this is what they want to do. I call this game: Moving Winter On Outta Here.