throw it way way back

So this week we got a letter from our insurance company. I secretly thought that they were writing to tell us that we are in fact two of the coolest human beings on the planet and that they just wanted to make us aware of this but instead it was a reminder that the new challenge had started. If we agree to sign up and complete the challenge for 70 percent of the time they knock fifty bucks off of our premium at the end of the year. This means that we both stand to make back $300.00 just for doing things an average number of times in grading terms. This new challenge is asking us to spend less and save more. Well the joke is on those crazy buttholes because we are poor and so there is no money to spend. Let it be said that children are expensive. Now let it also be stated that back to school is like a giant black hole of expense and we got sucked through it not once but twice! So obviously we are not planning a luxury cruise and our latest splurge is 38 cent soda at the grocery store. Too bad for us our kids did not get the memo that we have spent a grand getting them ready for some real fine learning so they continue to believe that we can spend away like it is our job. Fast forward to the weekend. For the entire summer we have planned these amazing weekend flings. Knowing that if I want to make back my money I knew that I could not continue with this trend so when Ethan asked to go to the arcades I said heck no I have a better idea- lets go climb R mountain. This as it turns out was not a good plan at all. It was in fact a Chris is a damn fool kind of plan and the subject of this week’s letter. Settle in friend this is gonna get wild.
R- Mountain adventure as told by Chris
9:00 am I try to convince the kids that sleeping is what we really really want to do for the whole day, they say no. I cry and die a little inside and convince them to let me sleep while they scrub the funk off themselves
9:01 the boys try to convince me that the funk is scrubbed off. I call BS and they hit the showers again
10:00 all of us are now clean and shoes are on and we are just about ready to hit the trails. Brice “reads’ the directions to get to the mountain and I start kvetching around like the good Jew that I am packing our travel bag. I pack a thirty two pound watermelon an over ripe pineapple and throw in a few cheese sticks and peanuts for good measure. Realizing I almost forgot water I fill four jugs and toss them in. My back pack now weighs at least thirty pounds but no bother I am tuff and prepared.
10:05 we are all buckled and headed to the mountain and we figure that we are going to arrive in about ten minutes.
10:15 we turn onto the road Brice thinks we need. He starts waxing poetic about how he used to know every stretch of road out here and that he knows right where it is because his steel trap mind is recalling sights and sounds. Suddenly we are driving way past the R on the mountain and I tell him we need to turn around. We then spend the next fifteen minutes exploring every private drive with a sign saying no trespassing. We totes trespassed in hopes of finding a living soul who could tell us how to get to the stupid mountain
10:30 feeling frustrated I finally ask if he really read the instructions only to find out he had not. He flips back around just in time to see a sign saying trail head 1.5 miles south. He feels vindicated and smart since he knows where south is and has proof he is on the right track.
10:33 we drive 3 miles south for good measure still no sign of trail so flip back around for the third time and start back over in the same driveway with the sign. By this point we have driven by their house enough that I am actually offended that they have not brought me a glass of lemonade or some cookies. Rude.
10:35 my melodramatic freak-out is in full swing where I say go all the way back to the road and start over. It is then that we realized that Brice has over shot the trail by 1.5 miles to the North. Turns out those people are directionally challenged. As I start a fiery dissertation about the sheer idiotic hood of these people Brice points out that I don’t know which direction south is either. This is a fact but here is another fact, I have never made a sign professing to know which way is south and then placed it in my driveway to confuse drivers.
10:37 we are finally on the right road. Just as I am calming down Brenen starts crying because Ethan poked him in the eye. My stellar solution is to allow him to poke him right back as hard as he wants. I tell him this is a free pass that he can use at any time with no chance of punishment. My awesome parenting skills backfire because he chooses to use this free poke right then so now I have two children with temporary blindness crying in my backseat. This is the reason wild eat their young I am sure of it.
10:42 after another fit of hysteria we finally find the trail head complete with the port a potty’s promised on the site that I have looked up to ensure that we actually find said trail head. We pile out of the car and head out
10:45 the trail starts to steepen and I am starting to wonder what I have done
10:47 the nice gravel is replaced by sinking sand and I look up into the distance and suddenly realized that this is not a nice little jaunt through the park. This is in fact a full fledge hike up a mountain. Let us stop and consider something at this point. How in the world did I hear the word mountain and not allow that information to sink into my brain as an indication as to what I would be going through. This is like the time I visited the statue of liberty. In my mind’s eye I figured that good old lady liberty was about my height with some killer arms. I had seen pictures and I had read plenty of accounts of her construction and yet I was shocked shocked I say when I arrived at Ellis Island to see that she is actually over three hundred feet tall. I think that I have a problem. The funny thing is as we were circling our location like two drunk crows I kept thinking wow that is a huge mountain and yet here I was gob smacked at the level of difficulty and even worse I allowed my two young boys to come with me.
10:50 I am panting and trying to come up with a really good excuse as to why we should turn around. I don’t want to be the looser who suggests this so I instead revel in the fact that Brenen is walking thirty feet behind us at the speed of a really slow desert creature. I am not sure what that desert creature would be since you know I can’t even figure out what a mountain is so for the sake of argument let’s call him a tortoise. I use this as a chance to stop and rest. He of course chooses this exact moment to run to catch up.
11:00 we are now approximately one one hundredth of the way up the mountain. Brice is panting like a woof, I am sweating like a dad gum sinner in church and our boys are suddenly energized and thrilled to be out in nature. We use all our strength to scream things out like don’t run up that cliff or stay out of that badger den with enough conviction that they will actually believe that there is in fact grave danger in these actions. By this point we have agreed that taking a six year old up a sheer rock face skiffed with sand is not good parenting and the perfect scape goat so we snap a few pictures and begin our descent down.
11:01 I suddenly have the fear of god placed in me when I realized how steep the path is and how slick everything is. Ethan rolls fifteen feet off the trail and I am just sure that I am going to have to remember how to do the dead man carry to get him out of there. The ironic thing is that I just had to go over this to certify for girls camp. I was not paying attention so I know that it is karma just being a jerk. Luckily his giant head slowed him down enough to allow him to come to a not so gentle stop.
11:09 we have now climbed down a good fifteen feet. Things are slow moving and I suddenly wish that I had spent more time doing squats for real instead of the ones that I do to look into the fridge for a tasty morsel since my quads are on FIRE! We meet up with two other people who have also made the stupid mistake of thinking that climbing R Mountain on a Saturday was a good idea. As we are trying to decide who gets to move forward in their misery on the narrow path Brice spots a lizard on a log. I spend a good five minutes just trying to see the silly thing, apparently camouflage is real.
11:20 I am now trying not to cry both from pain and terror. I am chastising myself for thinking that saving money was a good idea and am forming a strongly written letter to those jack holes at DMBA about bribing people. Brice in all his sweetness tries to cheer me up by pointing out that we got to see a lizard in its natural habitat. Apparently Brice just met me and does not realize that lizards creep me out and that I am not elated at seeing one.
11:30 I can now safely say I have a baby mountain of my own. Luckily for us all it is not in my pants but rather in my shoes. I did have the good sense to wear tennis shoes instead of Chaco’s but the mesh cooling system is allowing more dirt in than air out. There is a dam of dirt nestled under my big toes and each step feels like I am walking on high heels that I put on backwards. Let us not forget that I am a big enough spaz to have tried to scale a mountain that I believed was a mole hill so putting foot wear on backwards is in fact not out of the realm of possibility. I begin to hate myself for coming up with bonding activities and make a mental note to become a neglectful mother. Perhaps one who allows her children to poke one another in the eye.
11:37 I can finally see our car and if my calves were not so tight and my hips so sore I might have sprinted towards it. Instead I hold in sobs and settle for a dignified whimper. Thinking that I need to come up with a plan of action to ensure that the boys never want to do this again I tell Brice that we should convince them that we have lost the car keys at the top of the  mountain and have to go up after them. This evil plan keeps us going for the last ten minutes of the trip.
10:47 we finally get to the car and hobble over to pour out the dirt. My competitive side kicks in and I win the contest just to prove I can.
10:50 we drive home barefooted and eat the thirty pounds of watermelon, overripe pineapple, and sting cheese on the way. I hold out sharing my peanuts because 1. I love peanuts and 2. They were the toffee kind and do I really need to share those?
11:15 Brice and I are flopped on the couch exhausted and try to convince the boys that what they really really want to do is sleep for the rest of the day. They still won’t buy it.



Side bar I have a bunch of pictures to send but they are too big to send in an email. I was uploading them to some cloud when Brice pulled a Brice and monkey fiddled and lost everything. are you interested in them if so I will try again and throw something shiny at him to distract him. let me know

Bells will be ringing

Welp, it happened. Summer drifted away and school has started once more. This day is always a little weird. I am fully aware that I am working myself into motherly unemployment but dadgum if I still don’t get a little sad when my employees keep growing.

So here is a small recap-

I came home from work early so that I could be there when the boys woke up for the first day of school. I laid down for a fifteen minute snoozaroo and woke up to find them completely dressed and waiting for breakfast.

I actually debated trying to convince them that that cold cereal was in fact what they wanted for breakfast not pancakes and eggs.

I made the pancakes and eggs and somehow managed to  pack lunches all while half asleep- Culinary school and its eternal lack of sleep is really paying off now!

I argued with thing 2 for ten minutes as to why he had to have his hair done. His excuses included but were not limited to, it hurts my hair, I look like a girl, it is not even Sunday and finally the mother of all excuses THIS IS SUCH LAME! I don’t even have the energy to explain to that kid that sentence makes exactly zero sense.

Brice gave the boys back to school blessings and called our first born Ethan Brenen. I think this is a sign that there has been one too many exasperated cries this summer.

We took our requisite first day of school pictures in front of the door that I made sure to cute up last night. This is what we got. The one day Idaho sees sun seriously.

So then we got a beautiful shot by the garage. Werk that awesome scenery.

I realized that even if your children insist that they want to wear flip flops for the first two weeks of school it will be too cold to do so and their toes will freeze and the other mothers will judge you for your lack of parenting skills.

Eventually name tags will be donned friends will be found, bells will ring and  another year will start once more.I wonder if it is to early to turn in my application for unemployment benefits?

Not so tough after all

I sent these two away today. 

They went camping with my sister so Brice and I have a whole week to ourselves. The longest time we have ever had together alone in the ten years since being married. I have known about this impending trip for months. Long before we packed up our lives into boxes with the promise of a better life. Long before that promise melted into homelessness. Long before the heartache and stress resulted into the miracle of finding our dream home. It was a beacon in the night. It was the promise that if we could hold on for just a little bit longer we would be rewarded with sleeping in and eating ice cream for dinner. As life always seems to do time ticked along and this morning I found myself no longer holding on for a few weeks longer but for a few hours as I over packed my boys just in case they had a chance encounter with a bear and needed the twenty seven pairs of underwear I packed to turn not only into a tourniquet but also a gurney to carry the injured out of the woods.

I realized that Thing one somehow became a boy which really is the politically correct way to say he is gross.  I of course have evidence to back up this claim. This is the conversation I had with him.

I packed flushable kandoo wipes- you know the ones with a grotesque picture of a frog wiping his proverbial can. This elicits a lot of questions that I will never have answers to.  Really, think about it, a frog delicately placing a wipe over his slimy fingers to protect them because apparently amphibians have an aversion to the poo finger, Kermit the frog damn sure never sang about that one. But I digress.  Thing one asked why I was packing them and I delicately answered so he could wipe his can. But lets be honest I probably was a whole lot more crass about it. He accepted this answer then saw me packing soap to which he asked what I was packing that for. I again answered to wash his can. He looked at me and without a hint of sarcasm asked do I have to do both? I mean can’t I just choose between the two? Yep that is my super hygienic 9 year old. Needless to say suddenly the idea of escaping from him for a whole week got even better and I added to my growing list that I wouldn’t have to make comments about stench or why gas clouds at the dinner table are not acceptable.

The boys were super naughty and by the time we got to the drop off point Brice and I were practically dizzy with the prospect of all the things that we were going to do. We patiently waited while the truck took forever to pack. We diligently loaded alongside in hopes of speeding up the process and I even sped across town to pick up pizza to feed to the campers to expedite the departure. And then life as it so often does stopped me dead in my tracks and taught me I am not ready for reality.

We said our good byes, kissed our tow headed children and cheerily packed ourselves into the car. I was doing the typical one last thing and don’t forget we love you out the window as Brice was cranking the steering wheel to drive us to freedom. I told thing one to have fun and he flopped his half eaten pizza slice around in one hand and went to lift his other fist in triumph when all of a sudden his boy face turned into a grimace and he started to cry in the middle of his war cry. My mom heart immediately broke and I to began to cry. Luckily my future is so bright I wear shades and thus my secret was not exposed. I tried to sound confident as I began to list why he was going to have fun and my oversized man child climbed into my lap and continued to sob. I am sure we looked ridiculous. He started listing logical explanation as to why he couldn’t go the top being that a whole week away from home, even if they are dotted with pocket knife use and swimming was much too long to be away. Eventually I got him to believe me when I said it would be fine and we tried the departure again.  As soon as we pulled away I turned to Myers for comfort and that is when I realized that he too was crying. It is funny how your heart can simultaneously break and soar at the same time. In the middle of my torment I was reminded how lucky I am to have a giant man who loves his boys so much that to see them ache makes his heart ache equally.  

For the record I did have ice cream for dinner but ironically it was more for comfort than for celebration. Who knows maybe I do have a shot of mother of the year after all.

Well played son well played

We took our boys to see Mr. Peabody and Sherman this week. They have been looking forward to it all summer since it was the one PTO movie that they had not seen. Two weeks ago I said we were seeing it and I thought their little souls had been crushed when Turbo came on the screen. Turns out I can't read and had shown up to the movie theater a week early- ooops. Luckily a half gallon of root beer and fifty pounds of popcorn will fix any error. So take two was a success. The movie was awful and I should be awarded six million mom points for sitting through it. One of the closing lines in the movie is that every dog should have a boy. I swear to you I saw the whites of Ethan's eyes in the dark at this moment and you could hear the little gears in his brain turning. Sure enough as soon as our helmets were locked on our noggins he repeated the line to his father. So Charlie came home.

 Kids are smarter than they look I tell you.

Evil or Genius?

So in a moment of weakness earlier this year I broke down and bought my children each a 3DS. I vowed I would never be one of those parents that allowed expensive electronics but I justified the purchase by telling myself that they were buying half of it with birthday and Christmas money the whole time knowing that this was a thin lie at best. Ever since that day these stupid things have become the bane of my existence, almost karmic punishment. They are forever getting lost which results in Chernobyl like break downs. My boys are constantly glued to their tiny screens instead of taking up temporary hooligan status during our fifteen minutes of warm weather. Perhaps worst of all they laugh at the rules and flounce their disobedience as if they are suggestions that are clearly not for them. In an attempt to restore order Myers and I remove them from their grubby little paws at the end of the evening and relocate them to various spots. Somehow retrieving them has turned into a battle of will and wits.  Here are the latest exploits-
 A few weeks ago Brice got a text message from me that asked where Ethan’s DS was. He dutifully responded and life was good. Problem was the text was in fact not from me but rather from aforementioned child. When he called an hour or two later and asked if I had found it I was confused and it was then that I looked at the correspondence and was mortified. The blasted thing was full of spelling errors and how or why my spouse thought it could have come from me made me instantly wonder if Brice thinks that he is married to  some ape woman with no typing skills. I laughed it off and clued old Myers in to the scheme and we had a good laugh about it together and life went on. You would think that the boys being caught in their little game would be enough to put to an end to it all but somehow they took it as a challenge to up the ante.

This is what happened a few weeks after the first go round.

As you guessed from the horrible misspelling that again was not me. Notice however that they cleverly used a few of my catch phrases like please and thank you and then to really throw the guy off the trail added love you at the end. This would be mildly entertaining if this was the end of my saga. It however is not.

After successfully stumping the chump not once but twice they got super bold and went for the jugular.

Brice got a call from me and since he was at work let it go to voice mail. When he checked the message two seconds later this is what he heard.

Hi handsome I can't find the power cords so I need you to call me and tell me where they are thank you love you bye.

While the boys are able to pass themselves off as the opposite gender whilst texting audio is a little more difficult so he instantly knew it was not me but rather our youngest pretending to be me. He laughed and went back to work. Two minutes later the phone rings again only this time he answers. Here is the exchange.

"me"Hi handsome so I found the power cords but now I am going to need you to tell me the passwords.
Brice- Buddy what are you doing with mom's phone?
"me"- Wait you know this is not mom? I guess I am busted huh- bye
He then hangs up. There really are so many questions but mainly why did he think that after ten years of marriage that Brice would some how not know what my voice sounded like? I tell you children are fantastic.
What is even more amazing is knowing how much I loathe those things I allowed this to happen this week

That would be a cotton candy stand so that the boys could earn money for more DS games. So there you have it. On some sick level I must either hate myself or love those silly games. Either way we know that they get their genius from their father.

Nature you scary

So it turns out that last week was pioneer day and since I practically work for Jesus it was a paid day off for me. I am not even sure what pioneer day is about but I don’t think getting caught up in semantics when a free day off of work is hanging in the balance is really necessary so I happily took it. Normally I would use the time off to catch up on really important things like drinking lots of caffeine and binge watching some ridiculous television show; but my sweet co-workers decided that they had a better plan for me.  They decided that we should go on an unsanctioned employee float trip down the river. I should have known it was a bad idea when we were not allowed to call it a work party so that the university would not be held liable in the event of some catastrophe. If the threat of death didn’t clue me in I should have at least declined on account of it being held in nature. You know that I hate nature. I can appreciate all the splendor, and marvel at the Good Lord’s creations but I would rather do both of those activities indoors safe from the less then desirable trial run creations. You know like mosquitoes and cats. I however was guilt tripped into attending said party. They know guilt is like my kryptonite and I was exploited. Here now is my account of the trip.

We were supposed to drop into the water at 1:00 but since we were going with a group of Mormons we ended up hitting the water closer to 1:30. Not to worry though I used that spare half hour responsibly and managed to eat at least three pounds of dirt thanks to the gale force winds that had picked up. I am not sure if dirt is nutritious but anything to stave off hunger right?

1:31pm- We arrive at the water’s edge of the warm river and prepare ourselves for the voyage. My good friend Jenn who actually organized the trip advised that we tie our tubes to the boys and so I dutifully obeyed. After all she is a veteran and I a mere rookie. It felt like this task took at least fifteen minutes when in reality it was like two.  I am sure that watching Myers and I try to negotiate 4 tubes that are each 53 inches in diameter was a hilarious sight.

1:33pm- We fling our strand of four tubes in the water and I put Thing 1 and 2 on the outside tubes and Myers and I take the two center tubes. It should be said that warm river is a total misnomer. It should really be called ice cold river full of fish poop but I suppose that that would be hard to sell to travelers. The water was FREEZING! It was the kind of cold that makes you suck in air so violently that you are afraid that the hole in the ozone layer was enlarged.  Turns out that the only thing worse than cold water is cold water that is touching your yiblets. All the other floaters tried to convince me that eventually my extremities would go numb and then the temperature wouldn’t matter. At this point I was committed so I took their words of advice and gritted my teeth.

1:35pm- I am pretty sure the first stages of hypothermia had set in and so I decided that I would embrace nature and enjoy my trip.

1:47pm- Our tubes decided that floating in a straight line was stupid so the four of us were all facing in different directions. I got my tube to flip around just in time to see a felled tree perched in the water. Myers instructed me to help him paddle away from the tree but given the fact that I am a land locked Idahoan I am pretty sure that I just paddle in the opposite direction that he was so we ended up going straight into the tree. At this point we got slightly wedged in its menacing branches. I am sure that getting one tube out would be no problem; four tied together is a different story. As I begin to realize that there was a distinct possibility that we might flip over I begin to panic a little bit.  Right before we walked out the door I asked Myers if I should grab the lifejackets. His response was why the water is barely four feet deep in areas so I left them behind. Now here we were with two kids who don’t know how to swim, a fast moving river, and two parents who apparently have decided to take on the parenting style of a neglectful bear. Luckily the kids were scared and hung on for dear life and we managed to release our train with only a laceration on my foot and a couple fifteen scraps on Brice’s shins.

1:50pm- I have just about calmed Myers back down after our first brush with death when I see a rock. I warn him of the upcoming obstacle and again paddle in the opposite direction from him and we end up hitting the rock dead on. Thing one and I are on one side and Thing two and Brice are on the other and the water is rolling over us at wicked high speeds. We don’t know how deep the water is, aren’t sure of the footing underneath us, can’t untie the tubes from one another and they are cinching ever tighter together, and again have two kids with no life jackets and no skill set in the swimming department. I talk Thing two into climbing into his brother’s tube the whole time praying that he safely makes it and then I start to wish that I was MacGyver. Surly his mullet would be able to get us out of this mess by its sheer awesomeness.  After a few minutes and a whole lot of freaking out later Brice hopped off his tube and flung both empty tubes over the rock and then dove back into his tube.  By this point all hopes of a peaceful trip have flown out the window.

2:10pm- we have made it a whole twenty minutes without a major disaster but I am noticing that I am sitting really low. I bring this to Brice’s attention and that is when we realized that somewhere between the tree and the rock I have popped my tube. That sucker was fifteen bucks and apparently can’t withstand a few extremely sharp objects? Lame. This requires our balancing act of throwing the two kids together once more and me sliding from my popped tube into the vacant tube.  While I was in the middle of all of this I was bitten by a horse fly and my whole arm began to swell up. I of course did the only rational thing and ended up swearing loudly in front of my children.

2:30pm- I hit a rock

2:33pm-I get stabbed by a stick

2:35pm- I start to turn blue because of the combo of frigid water, high winds and a soaking wet t-shirt

2:40pm- I start to wonder if I will ever see dry land again

2:45pm- I start to consider switching religions because I am pretty sure the Lutheran’s don’t celebrate pioneer day

The next hour kind of is just wash rinse repeat of the aforementioned five items.

3:45pm- We are finally within 100 yards of the dock where we get out. We are welcomed with stagnant water and are not moving at all. By this point my arms are so tired from trying to steer our sinking ship that I am starting to consider just living on the water forever. Luckily one of my co-workers brought a canoe and was acting like a towing service. As we creep towards the shore I tell the boys that they need to get ready to jump out to which my oldest responds- I can’t do that my wiener will get wet.  What!?! Seriously I have risked life and limb to take him out on this little adventure and his take away is that getting out of his tube might get his future manhood wet. Worry not though, we managed to get him close enough that he could hop out and stay completely dry.

Here is what I took away from the experience. Nature is evil, floating on arctic water is defiantly not a good time, earning that eight hours of holiday pay was harder than going in to my regular shift, I am still not going to win any awards for my parenting. Rats