My boy....

Since I caught up on my posts, not too much has happened. It's the constant barrage of cooking, cleaning, yardwork, repeat. A few weeks ago I took the boy to the movies. We made a deal, Barbie for me and Oppenheimer for him. The clothes in Barbie were phenomenal....Buddy even agreed, which is how 2 weeks later he ended up with this treat....

He may never truly confess how much he likes a sweatshirt based off of a character in a Barbie movie, but he took it with him to a beach trip with some friends.....I think that speaks for itself! In other, not at all related news, Shane came home with some expired life jackets! I don't know about you, but EVERY TIME a flight attendant puts one on for the safety briefing, I just want to pull the red strings....

 Weirdly, Buddy just wants to blow it up like a freakazoid. I would try to claim no relation, but that's really hard when your kid looks so much like you! 

Shane's cousin and his wife are visiting for a week, they have rented a very cool car while they are here that I'm sure Buddy will be trying to finagle his way into getting a ride out of them before they leave....I actually don't blame him!

So all in all a super fantastic, I love my boy, day!

Caught the rewind....

 So, according to the pictures in my phone, this will be the last catch up for this last year. I'm pretty positive there was much more that happened last year, but according to my photos....it wasn't that important to me since I already deleted the pictures (or I had a double chin, which is probably more likely the case).... Anyway, last August, my niece that was going to BYUH decided to come out and spend the week with us, and we are soooo happy that she did! She was supposed to come a few weeks earlier with a bunch of friends, but someone caught COVID again. Stinking Buddy and his immune system (or inability to use soap and water on his hands...the debate is still out). Since it was just her, we could do some fancier vacationing ....

We took her 4 wheeling at Umama falls...which included a jump off a cliff into a lake.

We also stayed the night at a treehouse that had a zipline. It was pretty spectacular...and tons of fun. I have no idea what else we did with her, pretty positive we had a fantastic time doing it, whatever it was! Then my brother-in-law and his girlfriend came for a visit and we cuddled the cows as one does....

So all in all a super fantastic, all caught up, now I should actually do stuff to post about it, day!

Not planned....

Halloween is Buddy's absolutely FAVORITE HOLIDAY OF ALL TIME. Buddy will plan months in advance what he wants to do to celebrate the day, whether it is a party or setting up a free haunted house at our place. He loves ALL of the things related to his favorite holiday. Unfortunately, we live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific that hasn't quite grasped onto all the amazing fall themed festivities! That just gave us a good excuse to go to a place that really knows how to do fall right (possibly because they actually have a fall season).....Buddy and I hopped on a flight to go to Utah for two weeks this past October so we could ring in the holiday in style....Seriously, nothing says Halloween like a large pumpkin entryway....

Or a large cow? 

and some ears of corn?

Weirdly enough, our trip to celebrate Halloween allowed us the opportunity to hang out with my day....

Go visit a hot spring...

And go on a hike with what used to be my favorite sister....

That is until she took me on a hike to the top of a very high mountain (which was awesome)....and then we didn't started descending said mountain until the sun was setting. That could have been a cool experience...if we had prepared to do that. You know prepare, as in have flashlights, snacks....possibly a bear gun!

I took solo pictures of my personal dash to the bottom of the mountain while singing at the top of my lungs to scare the bears away. I'm pretty positive my sister owes her life to me.

While we were visiting my dad, I called and made a reservation to go see Shane's dad before we left. I got a phone call from Shane's stepmom that she didn't think he was doing very well. Buddy and I took off to go visit them. I'm going to keep my comments short on this, but I will say that Buddy and I had the honor and opportunity to help care for Shane's dad. I don't know if you can have a good time dying, but I feel like Charlie really went out with a bang, he had such a great sense of humor and made the best one-liners up until the very end. It was a very special time for us. Shane's family all got to make it out to see him and Charlie planned his own party for after the funeral where the kids played their instruments like the Partridge family. 

A few days later, Buddy had his birthday and officially became a man....at least from a legal standpoint. We took all of the family to Lagoon to celebrate.

A few days after that I turned 50...

Exciting!

So all in all a day!

Rewind to Turkey time!

We got special visitors for Thanksgiving this year. My niece that was attending BYUH and one of her friends came to have Thanksgiving with us. Sadly, I deleted most of the pictures of our adventures. We took the kids to the Sea Horse Farm, Volcano National Park and then to cuddle cows....

My niece's friend was from China....I think she thought we were a bit weird for cuddling the cows....but who doesn't love a good cow cuddle!!! I know I sure do! 

So all in all a super fantastic, maybe I'll stop deleting all my pictures for a while, day!

 

We interrupt this rewind of time for a dirty stinking rat!!!

2 nights ago, Buddy came into our room waking us up yelling for Shane to come and help him get Mongo (one of our cats). Mongo had caught a rat outside and thought it would make a lovely entertainment system for himself inside...the problem was that the rat was alive and would run around a bit, then Mango would catch it and munch a bit just to release it again. Thankfully Buddy was up or I probably would have a heart attack if I saw an eventually dead rat (and all the wonderful things that go with that) in my house. Buddy, the ever super trooper), even took a picture and then texted it to me just to show me how much he loves me!

Which is a lot, I assure you! Back to our regularly scheduled rewind....Shane's work Christmas party was in January (don't ask me why). It was 80's themed at the bowling alley. If you know anything about me at all, you know a good themed party. More than that, I love ALL THINGS 80's. I figured it was the perfect time to pull out my jean jacket and do a mini Glamour Shot..

Not quite right for a notorious Glamour Shot, but it definitely improved when Shane entered into the picture....

The party was fantastic! 10 out of 10 for sure! I even sang some Karaoke Blondie! 

 So all in all a super fantastic, at least after the rat was out of my house, day!

Celebrations of birthday's past....

Since we didn't get to Seattle for Christmas (long story that I'm hoping to get to), I thought it would be great if Shane could at least celebrate his birthday with his family. Every good birthday needs a good birthday party, and every good birthday party needs a good invitation....

and good props....

and every good prop needs a good photo background!

Backstory is that Shane and all his siblings got Cabbage Patch Kids for Christmas one year, and those kids have played and played...and possibly are still playing with their Cabbage Patch Kids. I thought it would be hilarious if we did a Cabbage Patch themed birthday party since we were going to be with his siblings....that could also bring their Cabbage Patch Kids for a reunion party of the century!

His family did not disappoint....

at all!

While we were in Seattle, we decided to take a group to check out a local Cat Cafe....

Which also, did not disappoint.....

Then we decided to check out an Archie McPhee store....

Which definitely did not disappoint and now I'm rethinking all the choices in my life that did not end up with me creating items for good ole' Archie (look up the store and then you'll see what I'm talking about....if you land on porn, that is definitely the wrong Archie, this Archie is hilarious). We were planning to stay a week, but my brother-in-law got a kidney transplant the weekend before, and his wife had to go out of town, so I got to hang out an extra week in Seattle. That sounded great to me, until Buddy got sick and I had to ship him off to grandma's house to quarantine, then I was stuck making quick daily assessments and food drops to Buddy (wearing PPE of course) and then scrubbing up to take care and boss around my brother-in-law (seriously, he was a trooper with my constant pill reminder and water pushing)! Since he was still napping a bit and the kids were old enough to entertain themselves during the middle of the day, I found an ingenious way to entertain myself! 

If you didn't guess it, I went on destination runs everyday...which was AWESOME!!!! I know it looks like I'm wearing the same clothes, and I am, I promise they were clean, but it was so cold I wore all 3 pairs of running pants to run in and every warm shirt/hoodie I thought I could stink up! Seattle has amazing things to see, but the traffic is ridiculous and the roads are super small, so running was perfect. Plus, I don't know how their drivers became so courteous to runners, but I love it. If I was getting anywhere near a road crossing the drivers would all stop....depending where they were stopped, some would even back up to give me a wider space.  Anyway, back to to cold weather....

It was so cold that all of my fingers ended up chapped and cracked like this. It hurt soooo bad, that I couldn't wait to get home after the 2 weeks of Seattle weather.

So all in all a super fantastic, thank goodness for warm air, day!