We spent more time chasing the ball out of bounds and telling each other what to do differently to do better. The blind leading the blind. Bob quit after 30 minutes.

Bob: You’re not very good.

Me: I know, I sucked today. You were bad, too. I swear I used to be good! I even went to tennis camp!

Bob: I don’t believe you. You show no signs of knowing anything about tennis.

Me: Fine, I’ll call my mom and she’ll tell you how awesome I used to be.

*** I called mom immediately***

Me: Did I used to be good at tennis?

Mom: Yeah you were ok. You even went to tennis camp, remember?

Me: Yeah but Bob doesn’t believe me because I played badly today. I used to be better though.

Mom: You used to be able to volley back and forth for a while. You were never a good athlete though. You weren’t bad but you weren’t the greatest. You were OK at tennis.

Me: HA! See, Bob, I WAS good at tennis.

We are going to ignore the fact that my mom slightly mocked my lack of athletic skills and be happy that she told Bob I was better at tennis than he thinks I am.

I went to tennis camp during the summer between 6th and 7th grade. That is where I met my friend Kim for the first time. Now, 16 years later, I still adore her! Perhaps I didn’t retain many tennis skills, but I got a friend for life. That is good enough for me.

She even carries a camera for the entire 26.2 miles on Sunday to have photos taken with Disney characters along the way.

Hey look! It is tweedle dee, tweedle dumb, and tweedle dumber!

She has been running in the Goofy challenge for the past 7 years! She’s even been featured in Disney’s promotional materials.

You can read about her 2012 race adventures on her own blog here.

Congrats on being perfectly Goofy, and perfectly insane! I’ll stick to the measly 5K races. They are painful enough.

Bob: I eat spoons. They’re made of metal. I eat SPOOOONS they’re made of metal. I eat SPOOOOOOOONS!

Me: You don’t eat metal, You’re not a goat.

Bob: Baaa! ram you! (while head butting me.) Goats ram things so they should have been called rams. But I guess the name ‘ram’ was already taken so they were named goats.

Me: Goodnight.

Baa ram you!

I yelled for him to drop it and that is when I knew the rabbit, who I named Stewey, wasn’t dead yet. Wellesley isn’t the brightest crayon in the box so it is no wonder he didn’t have the natural instinct to shake Stewey to break his neck to put him out of his misery. Coda caught many rabbits when he lived in NY and he was a pro. Wells dropped the rabbit on the step outside the door and Coda, proud big brother that is, started wagging his stub of a tail as if he caught Stewey himself.

I hate to see an animal suffering but I also couldn’t bring myself to put him out of his misery so I did what any girl would do. I woke my husband up and told him to deal with it.

Bob dragged both dogs to the bathroom to wash their faces off, and I promptly left for work. Bob said by the time he finished bathing the dogs, the rabbit had passed away on its own time, so he threw it into the field behind out house so coyotes or hawks could feast.

Now the Easter Bunny police are after Wellesley for rabbit-slaughter so I’ve enrolled him in the witness protection program. They’ll never find him. Her.

We let Coda in on the secret of his undercover brother and he was shocked and appalled. “You mean I’m kissing my BROTHER?! Gross!”

He lets me keep “foot face” which in turn prevents my foot from meeting his face. Then he goes on to mock my Turbie Twist towel by calling me Aunt Jemima.

Through the fantastic Pinterest site I found many DIY body scrubs to try using ingredients in my pantry. My mom was the first person to tell me about using sugar to exfoliate. After we rolled peanut butter cookies in a bowl of sugar, I didn’t just ditch the sugar. No, sirree. I poured it into my hands and scrubbed away!

To make my own body scrub I used:

1/2 C white sugar

1/2 C brown sugar

1 Tbsp Veggie oil (or olive oil)

1 Tsp Vanilla

1 empty, clean jar

Pay close attention so you don’t mess this part up: mix it all together. Can you handle that?

That is all! These would make great gifts for the holidays or if you’re too cheap to spend more than 20 cents a person on ingredients.

I couldn’t wait to shower after I made the scrub. I shed an entire layer of skin like a chameleon and I smelled like I had just rolled in a vat of cookies. Maybe I really DID roll around in cookies. I’ll never tell and I don’t judge.

hahahahaha from Bob Spryn on Vimeo.

I felt the urge to offer suggestions for how to fill that extra 40 minutes a day: make the bed, empty the dishwasher, do some dishes, dust, vacuum… you get the point.

When I got home from work yesterday he was full of pride!

Bob: I washed the coffee press and I put my plate from lunch in the dishwasher. Aren’t you proud of me?

Me: Wow, you put a whole plate in the dishwasher? Also, when you washed the coffee press you set it on top of all of the dishes that were already dried in the strainer so now we have to wait for those to air dry again. Next time, empty the strainer first.

Bob: But aren’t you proud of me?

Ok, ok. I am so proud of you for putting a plate in the dishwasher. I’ll have some gold stars ready for next time! I appreciate the effort.

<3

They were cute little babies. We wanted to see what Paco would do if he saw the mice so we let him into the garage and he was terrified. He has no problem beating up a 75 pound dog, but a baby mouse is spooky. He glanced over at the bin while staying as close to the door as possible.

Bob scooped him up and brought him closer to the mice but he still didn’t like it. Someone needs to explain to Paco that he eats, sleeps, poops and creates shenanigans 99.9% of the time. The other .1% of the time I expect him to earn his keep around the house.

Bob released the family of mice far away from the house and we haven’t seen them come back since. We are officially mouse-free, no thanks to Paco.

Speaking of Paco filling his time with shenanigans, flowers don’t last long on our table. I’ve known of his little habit for a few years now but I still love having fresh flowers in the house. I started purchasing inexpensive carnations so it isn’t a major loss when he lashes out. Plus, I think carnations have a bad wrap for being cheap and I still think they are pretty. This is what remains of a dozen carnations.

We’ve covered a lot of Colorado state but there are a few things still on my bucket list while we’re out west. I made a list of 18 places that I’d like to see within an easy 12 hour drive so we can have nice weekend trips. Without further adieu, here is the official list:

I bet you all re-read the line where I described a 12 hour drive as “easy”. After driving across the country with 2 dogs and a cat, 12 hours is an easy drive!

I made these cut-outs and wrote in the items on my bucket list. I used leftover scrapbook paper that I framed for the guest room and added the shapes to an empty cork board in the room seen here from the guest room makeover:

When we have a free weekend next summer, we’ll look at the board and pick a weekend adventure.

Possible adventures for 2012 are:

Mt. Rushmore, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado National Monument, Albuquerque, NM, Teton National Forest, Yellowstone, Telluride, CO, Grand Canyon, Salt Lake City, UT, & Jackson Hole, WY.