Just Regular Days

31 Aug 2008

So summer is almost over and I thought that it might be fun to include some pictures that Jared has been storing on his cell phone. They are just silly day to day pictures but we think they're interesting.

Around town we've been noticing lots of signs that use quotes in weird ways. We've always considered the use of quotes to mean that it's actually a direct quote, a title or a word that has some kind of hidden, double meaning. Here are some examples of signs we've seen that we hope don't make sense:

"Cat" Furniture For Sale

Best "BBQ" in Texas

and as shown in the above photo: Fresh "Quality" Meats Daily

This is Derek and Jared waiting for food at The Cove. It is a car wash/laundromat/diner that was featured on "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives" on the Food Network. It was really busy and pretty good - but kind of expensive.
Here is a toad (or a frog - we don't know the difference) that lives in our back yard. It really freaks Ralphie out.
Tyler gets a behavior report card from school every day. On each of the first four days he got an "S" which stands for Satisfactory (not as good as an "E" for Excellent.) Last friday I told him that if he could be good enough to get an "E" that we would go to Krispy Kreme and he could eat as many doughnuts as he wanted to. Well, I guess the picture gives away the grade. He bought 6 doughnuts but only ate 2 before he was too full to continue. He ate the rest the next day at home (oh - Tyler says to write that I ate one of his 6 doughnuts.)
Derek dumped his bottled water on the floor at Costco so we made him clean it up.
This is Jared getting the EKG that is necessary when you dislocate your shoulder?
This is Elder Worthlin's grandson cutting Jared's hair at COT. I guess he learned cosmotology and all that other star gazing stuff on his mission.
This is the way the kids knelt down for prayers last night. It's kind of hard to see, but they are both in the laundry basket.

Rectum Non Bustus

30 Aug 2008

So here is pretty much my favorite picture ever! (I think it might be Kay's too.) In the original post the bottom line of the "E" in "RECTUM" was missing so it looked like it said "RFCTUM." Thanks to modern technology it now reads more correctly. I meant to take a picture of this sign with Derek in front because it's so funny when he toots. He always makes a really big deal out of it and an even bigger deal out of saying "excuse me!" It was just icing on the cake that he made that face and it looks like the lightning is striking him!

Jared investigated what "LSO" and "Rectum Non Bustus" refer to. LSO stands for Landing Safety Officer and Rectum Non Bustus is his motto. Apparently he hates it when the pilots crash their planes into the ship somehow (into the back end?). The lightning and the bar floating over the ship have us confused - also there are supposed to be three dots on each side of the floating bar. Anyway - the picture is still hilarious!

Update on the Polygs

Suzie's let the polygamist updates go for a few weeks, but the truth must be told...to family members...in another state...with circumstantial evidence.

Anyway, here's the first official pictures of the neighbors across the street. I (Jared) covertly took pictures of as many of the family members as I could before I felt too creepy to continue.

The woman on the right is the older 'wife(?)' that Suzie's referred to. The other two females are daughters(?). The daughter in the back of the picture has strangely patchy, short hair. I haven't seen her up close, but Suzie suspects she might have trichotillomania.

As Suzie's mentioned, their three vehicles have different license plates--Utah, Arizona, and Nevada (hmmmmmm?), and they moved in immediately after the big bust in San Angelo.



Nothing definite, I'm just saying...

First Day of School

25 Aug 2008

So today was the first day of school! It was awesome - not really. It was just regular except that we had to get up early enough to be there on time (7:45 a.m.) and that Derek went around all day looking for "Kebin, Tyter and Dad".

This is a very tired Tyler holding up his invitation to the local cub scouts. I thought you had to be 8 to do that.
This is a picture of the line of cars waiting to drop off/pick up their kids from school. It's kind of hard to see but the line goes all the way back up the street to the stop light and down Potranco toward WalMart. It took me 45 min to get Tyler. See, they won't let the younger kids leave the school unless they are with a parent or on the bus. Unfortunately they don't have a bus that goes to our house even though it's more than a mile away. Aparently the elementary school has 1,300 students and the middle school next door has 1,500.
This is what happens to Derek in the afternoon when he wakes up too early in the morning.

Corpus Christi, TX

21 Aug 2008

Today we went to Corpus Christi after Jared got off work (at 11:00 a.m.!) It was qutie a drive - 250 miles - but we really had a good time. We went to see the USS Lexington. They have parked it in the bay and turned it into a really neat museum. If you didn't know, this is a VERY FAMOUS ship. It was built in the 1920's and participated in nearly every major operation in the pacific during WWII. It's planes destroyed 372 enemy aircraft in the air and 475 more on the ground. It was nicknamed the "Blue Ghost" because it was painted blue (instead of camo) and the Japanese reported sinking it 4 different times. It is was the oldest ship in service when it was decommissioned in 1991. The tour was really neat - we spent almost 2 1/2 hours there. This is us walking up to the ship.
This is Tyler holding the nose of an F-14 on the flight deck.
Here we are next to the F-14. I didn't know this but the wings on almost all the navy planes fold up so that they can put them on giant elevators and move them down to the hanger area underneath the flight deck.
Here are the boys next to a helicopter. It's probably a famous kind.
Jared was really excited to move the gun up and down and aim it at the bridge over to the city.

I have no explanation. Don't forget to read the latin on the sign.
Here is Tyler at the controls of some kind of awesome Navy thing - probably a plane.
Here is Tyler at the controls of the entire carrier.
This is the naughty boy farm.
These are the actual sleeping quarters for the sailors. The kids barely fit.
Here is Kevin ordering lunch from the ghost ship's mess crew.

Afterward we went to the beach. It was getting dark and I didn't want to get sand in my camera so I don't have any pictures. But we all had a lot of fun playing in the waves for an hour or so (it was still 90 degrees even though it was nighttime). As we were leaving we noticed that the sand seemed to be wiggling. We eventually realized that at night the entire beach is absolutely COVERED with sand crabs (that by the way are exactly the same color as the sand - which doesn't matter when it's dark). Everyone had shoes but Jared - luckily he didn't get bitten - by a crab anyway.

Here is the mosquito bite count:
Jared - many more than 20
Sue - 17
Tyler - 25
Derek - many more than 50
Kevin - 1 or possibly 2

Kevin must have yucky diabetic blood.

Jared's Birthday

20 Aug 2008

So Jared turned 31 today. Every year on his birthday he asks me, "So, how does it feel to be married to an older man?" Then he moves his eyebrows up and down and flashes me a silly grin. I never know what to say. I guess it probably feels similar to being married to a younger woman.

Jared had to work today but afterward we went swimming and then came back home for a nice steak dinner. It was weird to cook steak in the oven but since the BBQ was broken in the move I had to. As it turns out, cooking steak the Test Kitchen way (even in the oven) makes the best steak you've ever tasted. It was soooooo good. After dinner Jared unwrapped his present. We got it at Costco and really thought that the clip from the Italian Job (below) summarized the situtation.It was a great birthday and especially nice to have Kevin here to celebrate with us.

Here is Jared pretending not to know what the present is and Derek pooping his pants. Kevin is looking on.
The kids saw Jared carrying in the huge box but they were still excited to help him unwrap it and show him what it was.
Here is Jared being suprised at seeing the giant TV that he picked out at Costco the day before.
Here is Tyler excited to eat cake and ice cream.

This is the clip I mentioned above.

The Computer is Fixed (mostly)

19 Aug 2008

Well, I ended up calling the computer fix-it guys and a guy came over and got the computer back up and running. He said that it was a problem with overclocking that Jared did to get the RAM to work better (or something). Problem now is that there isn't any sound. Jared will try to fix it on Saturday.

Well Kevin came to visit us yesterday. He was excited to get a break from school and work and we were excited to see someone we've known for longer than 2 weeks. I think that he's having a good time. We went to the base today and walked around with Jared just so that we could see all the people saluting him because it made us feel special to be with him. We took a special trip over to the new recruit side of the base and a whole squadron of airmen had to stop practicing their marching to stand at attention as we walked past. Talk about a power trip.

In between rain storms we went downtown to see the riverwalk and the Alamo. The riverwalk was really nice this time because we were the only ones there (Tues afternoon). The Alamo was closed when we got to it but that we okay because it started raining again.

Yesterday I went to the OB and everything is fine with the baby. I will have my ultrasound on Wed, Sept 3rd so that is the day that we find out if it's a boy or a girl. Yay!

Tomorrow is Jared's birthday. Tyler, Derek and I got him a really nice present. You will need to check back in tomorrow to see what it is.

Here are some pictures:

I thought that Ralphie was starting to smell bad because it was hard to get all his long hair clean in his baths. So....here you go! Our new dog - his name is Ralphie! (It took me 4 hours with a pair of scissors to achieve this result. Good thing I don't have a day job.) This is the aftermath of my doggy grooming practice.
Here is the fam eating their favorite dessert for breakfast.
This is a tiny lizard that lives on our back porch. There's actually two of them because today we found a lizard tail on the step but obviously this lizard still has his.

My Computer Broke!!!

11 Aug 2008

My computer is broken!!! Arg! It has a corruption in the config.sys file and Jared and Joseph cannot get it fixed, even working together. I called the Geek Squad and they are coming today so hopefully I'll be up and running tomorrow. In the meantime - I can't get access to any of my pictures. Sorry - now my blog is boring, boring, boring. :(

Children's Museum

6 Aug 2008

Last Saturday we took the kids to the children's museum downtown. It was a really neat place and I bought season passes so that we could go all the time. The kids had a really great time and we didn't get to see everything so it will be fun when we go back.

Tyler put this on for Derek but Derek didn't care because he was too busy setting the toy table for dinner. I tried to take pictures of Derek but he would never hold still long enough for my camera to focus.

Tyler's Quote of the Day - To the waitress at Olive Garden: "Yeah, my parents don't really drink wine because they know what happens to them when they do."

Kids at the Hospital

5 Aug 2008

I took the kids with me to my OB appointment at the hospital on the base today. It was a regular circus. They weren't really bad, they were just two boys that were tired and bored. At one point I went to the lab to get my blood drawn and when Tyler walked in he said, "Why does it smell like old lady blood in here?" The nurses laughed a little and said, "Well, it's probably because there's old lady blood in here." About 10 seconds later an old lady who was a dead ringer for the crypt keeper came in with her cane and sat down in the chair across from me to get her blood drawn. This time Tyler said, "Now it smells like dead lady blood in here!" Both nurses and the lab tech just burst out in tears they were trying so hard not to laugh. I am so embarrassed. After that great incident, I had fun chasing Derek when he ran off down the hall and out of the lab with the bag holding my urine sample. He fell in the hallway and dropped it twice.

Here is the biggest spider I've ever killed. It's dead in this picture because of the 2 cans of Raid Spider Killer I sprayed on it in the garage.

Polygamist Update: I know that the dad and the younger lady are a couple because I saw them holding hands at the HEB (grocery store). It's the older lady that I'm not so sure about. I am pretty sure that she is the kids' mom because the other lady never goes anywhere with them and she's really too young to be their mom. Today the older lady and the kids came to the house in the Buick (it's been gone for at least a week) and unloaded all sorts of luggage. I'm going on the theory that they two women trade off staying at the house. Or possibly, the older lady and the dad are divorced, but she stays with the kids and him when he has visitation.

Dad Comes Home!

1 Aug 2008

Jared finially came home on Fri, Aug 1st. We were SO EXCITED to see him. His plane came in from Houston at 10:35 p.m. and it was about 15 minutes late so the kids were tired of waiting. Aparently the plane that Jared took from Alabama to Houston only had 3 seats per row (one on one side and two on the other). He said it was like flying in a long Ford Escort.

When I saw Jared come around the corner toward the baggage claim I sent Tyler off to meet him. Tyler (as usual) wasn't really paying attention and walked right by him. I called to Tyler and luckily Jared heard me and caught Tyler before he disappeared down the hall. Derek was shy of Jared at first (his haircut is a little different) but he warmed up right away and told Jared about "Thomas and Friends" (Thomas the Tank Engine) about 50 times.
Jared brought the kids little camo outfits (known as ABU's or Airman Battle Uniforms) as souveniers. Tyler was really excited, but Derek wouldn't even put his on. All he said was "No way! Never!" and ran off.
We're glad you're home Dad. Now go fix the car and mow the lawn while I get in the kitchen and make you some pie.