Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

OK, I'm supposed to be blogging, but I'm watching 24.... so I may seem distracted - LOL! I'll give it my best shot. hehe :)

Woke up this morning at 5:20am, and Captain America and Jake did too, and we got ready for Seminary. Captain America's standard of ready is more thorough, we'll say, than mine, so we were a few minutes late for seminary. hehe.

We dropped Jake off, and headed to Walmart. Captain America had bought some exercise shorts last Walmart trip, and they didn't fit. So we were on a "Shorts exchanging" mission. ha! And guess what? 24 hour Walmarts don't have 24 hour customer service desks. sigh. So we went to look for different shorts, and figured that we'd return them another day/time.

Captain America finally found some shorts that he liked, and we went to the dressing rooms. Yup, you guessed it. The dressing rooms were closed too! What the crap??? Captain America managed to sweet talk the lady into opening it up for him, though. He's smooth - hehe :)

He got one pair that he liked, and put the others back. We got some cereal and some milk, paid, and headed back to the church. We were only 5 minutes late picking up Jake. Yeah, we were a little off today :)

Here's me at Walmart - I'm hot, huh?

We got home in time to see Tom off to the bus stop, then got Joe and Jim and Eme ready, and at 7:20, we RAN to the bus. We were a little late. But we made it. Captain America and I visited with my friends for a few minutes, and we headed back home.

Jake left for the bus at 7:45am, then it was just Captain America and I. At around 9:30am, he headed to the gym/exercise. I showered and got ready for the day. And the morning passed. Captain America had a doctors appointment at 1:20pm, and then a dentist appointment at 3:00pm. He had about 15 minutes in between the two. So he was home, but gone again :(

I spent some time cleaning, and Captain America did too. Together, we got most of the laundry done, and the dishes and kitchen cleaned. The living room looked pretty good, and I got some of my laundry washed and folded. It was a productive day.

But a stressful one. Yes, it's happy and joyous and great having Captain America home. But it's stressful at the same time. I've been on my own for 7 months. And so has he. We both have our own way of doing things. Different ways of doing things. It just takes a bit to re-learn to work together. We're still working on it :)

Anyway, Tom got home from the bus around 3:15pm, and Joe and Jim and Eme got home around 3:45pm. And I left Tom in charge, and made a quick trip to Big Lots. I needed out of the house. LOL. And Boxer needed a new collar so we could take him on a walk. I don't know what Jake did with the other one...

Here's me on the way :)
I found some cool lip gloss, and an HDMI cord for my broken laptop/tv, and some batteries, and some collars, and a few other things. And paid, and headed home. It was a super short trip, but well worth it. hehe.

Here's my lipglosses :)

I paid and headed home. And got there about 5 minutes after Captain America got home. He was out starting his truck. It still started! hehe :) I tried on some lip gloss, and had to pose!
Amanda had stopped by while I was at Big Lots, and she'd brought me a Sonic happy hour drink! Awe, thanks my dear! Thanks for looking out for me!
We had the kids do chores, and helped the house be a bit cleaner. It still needs some work, but it's getting better. Here's a picture of Jimmy with his new bear from Captain America.



Jim liked this picture, because he had hair! He saw it, and said "I have hair! Send this picture to Ms Amanda!" hehe.
We had an hour before we had to leave for Gattitown, and we all got ready. You need real shoes to play on the race track, so he's me alternative to flip flops. hehe.
After what seemed like FOREVER, we were out of the house and on the road to Gattitown. It's across town on the East Side on Lee Trevino BLVD. Quite a way down, in fact. I eventually found it. I only made a few wrong turns. hehe.

We got there, got checked in, and found Terra. My kids went for food, then Captain America and I went for food. And all sat and ate and watched "Sponge bob". It was funny, because my kids don't watch that show. Because it's dumb. hehe. Well, because I don't like it. Anyway, check out how raptly there are watching this silly show. hehe :)

I had a big salad, and a cup of soup. Then a part of a bread stick and a few bites of salads and a bit or two of dessert. And I was full. That was enough for me :) Joe ate enough for 3 people, I think. Ha! I didn't supervise too closely what people ate. I guess I should have, but we don't do all you can eat very often...

After eating, I gave all the kids their play cards, and turned them loose. We found Jake playing on this shooter game.


Captain America played the race car game a lot. I sucked at it, but he was pretty good. hehe.

Here's me playing on the race car game. Yeah, there's a reason why I'm not a race car driver professionally...


Jim and Captain America and I played some bumper cars, and a few other games. Jim and I played some air hockey, and here we are bowling.

And the roller coaster ride

45 minutes went SUPER fast. When our time cards had expired, we all met up at the race car track for our final game. It was a long wait, but was gonna be fun!



Joe got to go first. There were a few groups in front of us that didn't wanna split their group, so Joe got to go as an extra in someone elses turn. He didn't mind! He got to go earlier than everyone else. hehe. He did a very good job driving the car! I was impressed!

Jake in line

Jim was tall enough to drive his own car! I was kinda worried, since he's only 5, but he did fabulously. I think when they made the height requirement, they weren't thinking that there would be 5 year olds driving their cars. But they didn't ask his age, and I didn't tell it. hehehe. All I know is that he had a TON of fun!
Eme and Tom were next. They wanted the fast cars, but were told that they had to be 14 in order to drive one of those. Sorry, kids!

Tom and Eme on the track

And then it was Captain America and Jake and my turns! Oh yeah, baby! We were SO excited!



Jake was in 1st, Captain America was in 2nd, and I was in 3rd. Which sounds pretty impressive, if there were like 100 people. hehe. But there were just 3 of us. ROFL! But I'm having a great time here, huh? Check out the wind in my hair. ha!


I ended up passing Captain America right at the end. Yeah, I really think his car malfunctioned and slowed down. Cause he was SO far ahead of me the rest of the race. hehe. Oh well, I still "won" him, right? LOL ;)

After we were done with the races and our cards, the kids gatered up all of their tickets, cashed them in, and got some dumb prizes. But they loved them. hehe. Then we headed back to post.

But first, we swung by Circle K to get a drink. And the first one we came to had $0.49 any sized drink, but they were out of soda. What????

So we drove to a different Circle K and got our drinks. 7 drinks for under $4.00 Not too bad! Jake and Tom and I got the drinks, then passed them out to everyone else in the truck. And we headed home.


Jim and Joe were practically asleep when we got home. We just kinda led them to their beds. And I started blogging, and Captain America worked on his research paper for a bit. It's ow midnight, and I'm sleepy. I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes awake. I hope that this blog is making sense. 24 got over about 10 minutes ago, and now I'm REALLY falling asleep.

Night, you guys! Have a GREAT Saturday for me!

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Great one, Sharon!!! Loving' the summertime layouts!

Hot Fun in the Summertime

New stuff!!! First off, thanks to Kimberly for proofing these for me! She caught a few typos. Oopsie! All fixed now - hehe :) Click HERE to go to my store to grab some GREAT WordArts for only $2.00 a pack this week :) All layouts are by Sharon, the amazing - hehe :) She's fabulous, you know :)













OK, so first off, just wanted to let you know that my friend, Amanda, is in a photo contest at Ft Bliss! And the main prize??? A new camera! And she takes GREAT photos! So, I want her to win so she can take photos of my family. hehe. Not selfish or anything, huh? LOL. It's a contest for the cover of the Bliss NOW magazine, and the winner will get a new camera and their photo on the cover of the magazine.

Here's the photo, and what it would look like. Sweet, huh? OK, so to vote for here, you need to first click HERE to like the Fort Bliss MWR page. Then, you need to click HERE to like the photo. I really hope she wins. Cause I want some new good photos of my family. hehe :)

And one more thing. hehe. I did know that Captain America was coming back. I just didn't wanna blog about it for OPSEC reasons (army something or another related to information and safety). We have to be careful about what we say and what info we let out there. So, I just blogged about it AFTER the fact. Didn't want anything bad happening because of me, you know. hehe. Just like when he left, I didn't say the exact date, but blogged about it AFTER he went. It'll be the same when he comes home. Can't get out exact dates. But I did know. About 2 months ago, I had a time frame, and then about a month or so ago, I had a date and an itinerary,

Hola!!! So yeah, first day with the hubby back!!! It was crazy, and honestly, I spent more time by myself than I have practically all summer. hehe. Funny how things work out like that sometimes.

I woke up at 5:20am, and got myself and Jake ready for seminary. Captain America wanted to come, but realized that he wouldn't have enough time to do that, and to get ready and showered and off to his airborne physical at 7:30am. So he stayed home and got ready and helped the other kids get ready.

Jake and I headed out, and actually made it a few minutes early! He headed in, and I went back to sleep. He found me curled up in the drivers seat at 6:40am. He was like, Hey, that's not fair. hehe. I thought it was funny. I did have a nasty cramp in my neck when I woke up, though. hehe.

We headed back home, and he thought about going back to sleep, but ended up showering and playing with Boxer instead. Captain America left the house at 7:20am, and I saw a bus pull up at around that time. Oh crap! I knew there were two buses, so I hurried and grabbed the kids and we ran over there. Yeah, I don't know what bus I saw, but it wasn't the right bus. Both Hughey buses had yet to show. Thank goodness!

I chatted with Krystal for a few minutes, then the kids got on the bus, and I headed back home. Jake watched an episode of something or another cartoon, and I took a nap. See, Jake had a therapy appointment at 9am, so there wasn't really any point in sending him to school before hand. School starts at 8:40am or something like that.

At 8:20am, I woke up (I don't know that I really slept...), started a load of dishes, organized a few things, got Jake all ready to go, and we headed out to his therapy. And yeah, there was something crazy going on with the interstate, because traffic was going SO slowly... But we managed to still make it there 5 minutes before the appointment!

Here's Jake and I in the waiting room.

I talked with the therapist first, for about 3 minutes. Just to get an idea of what's going on. Then she called back Jake. And talked with him for about 20 minutes. I designed a few things during that time. Then I got to go back and talk with him and her. They were working on Anger and Aggression and things to do in place of it.

Apparently, it takes an Aspie kid about 20 hours of repetition to "get" something, so she gave him some handouts to look at and study. I'm supposed to have him go over them at least twice a day. Can do!

I don't remember who went next, but I know that I did get to talk with her for a few minutes at the end. She's really a good therapist, and I think that she's gonna help our family a lot.

We talked a lot about parenting teens with Natural Consequences. Jake hits his brother and he loses TV. How is that a natural consequence? Nope, it doesn't make sense. What would happen if an adult gets mad and hurts someone? They go to jail, right? So if you get mad and hit your sibling, then you go to time out in your room. Like jail. Works for me.

If a child refuses to do his chores, you give them a natural consequence. When they wanna have free time, you dock them the time that they should have been doing chores. Or you dock them the money. That worked for me, too. Now I just need to work on remaining calm, and implementing it.

We got done with the appointment, and headed out. I drove to Austin High, and signed Jake in, then headed back home. Still no sign of Captain America. He was gonna try and meet us at the doctors office. His physical must have ran late.

I got home around 10:30am, and Captain America got there a little before 11am. I'd cleaned up a little, and things were looking passable. hehe. See, my flowers are pretty!
Captain America got home, changed, and we headed out for lunch. He'd been fasting since 7:30pm the night before, so he was STARVING. hehe. And yeah, I'm always up for food. LOL. So we headed out to El Taco Tote. Love me some Tote!!!

We got our brochetta platter for 2, and sat down for lunch. YUMMY!!! It's really my favorite :) Here's photos of Captain America and I with our sodas! We're so silly :)
We walked around the mall for a few minutes, then headed back home. I wasn't in a shopping kind of mood... hehe :) We got home, and all too fast, it was time to get the kids from the bus. Tom was home at 3:10pm, then Captain America and I walked to pick up the kids from the bus at 3:40pm. He got to meet Amanda and Krystal, and we visited with Kari and Brian for a while.

Captain America headed to the gym to lift, and I did the kid thing. And yeah, I must have been feeling a little stressed, because I could feel my neck tightening up. Sigh. I got my store loaded, and dinner for the kids. I'd crock potted some chicken and carrots earlier in the day. Yeah me! I'm loving me some crock pot. hehe.

I spent until around 6pm when Captain America got home in my room, on my computer, and watching 24. I really didn't feel good. Captain America got home, he had his dinner, and we had the kids do some chores. At 7pm, we sat down to watch a movie. And turned it off around 8pm so the kids could go to sleep. Captain America was falling asleep, so when the kids went to bed, he came and laid down, and I started blogging. It's now 9:30pm. I think I'm gonna tie this up, finish off my episode of 24, and go to sleep. 5:20 seems to come SO early!!!

Night, y'all! Tomorrow we have more doctors appointments, and a fun evening at Gattitown! Oh yeah :)
Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Sharon, I'm simply LOVING all of these beach photos! You do an AMAZING job!!!