The Circus

I'm trying to catch up on blogging today. Avery is asleep and Emily is eating her lunch. So I'll quickly tell you about the circus we went to last week!

It was Emily's first circus, and mine, too. But I was more interested in watching Emily watch the circus.

We loved the elephants.

And the tigers were awesome! Emily thought they were cute.

The motorcycles in the cage were so cool! There were seven of them in there all at once! Crazy!!!

We had seats in the nose-bleed section, but we still had a good view.

The circus was fun. But don't buy souvenir cups from the vendors there. They are EXPENSIVE and they leak.

Mother's Day

It was a good day Sunday! Daddy and Emily started the day off by making me breakfast!
Then we had a good day at Church, a nice meal with Grandma and Grandpa Hill, and ended with a fun evening of playing with glowsticks in a completely dark house!

Great Family Day

The other day we went to ride the train at Trinity Park. So much fun!

Emily kept saying how "awesome" it was!

At the halfway point, we stopped at a depot and got some popcorn.

Emily ate half of her popcorn and decided she wanted to feed the turtles. We had seen some turtles in the river during the train ride. We stopped over at the Botanical Gardens and fed the rest of the popcorn to the turtles and fish. I have to say that was The Best dollar we've ever spent! It was so much fun!

There was a turtle there that had to have been a hundred years old at least. He was digging the popcorn.

Emily gladly shared her popcorn with some kids.

That's the last of it!

So cool! He posed like that for a minute or two. I think he thought I had food. "Duuude, gimme some food!"

It was a grand day out.

...right, Avery?

Family Christmas

Look at all the presents! FUN!!! And the craziness begins! Watch the wrapping paper fly, see the kids' eyes sparkle with excitement, hear the parents' groan as yet another louder-than-necessary toy is added to their kids' toybox.

Hey there, Grandma and Grandpa Brown. I hope you enjoyed your presents, too!

Caiden was asleep when everyone else opened their presents. I think he was mainly interested in the candy that Nana included in his stocking.

We exchanged gift baskets this year. Mine was a bathroom themed basket, complete with Farty Lites, Farty Paper, and Fart-B-Gone air freshener. A must-have for anyone eating turkey and ham this season...

And the lucky recipient? Uncle Jason! A perfect fit.

An "old" family "heirloom" was passed on to the next lucky family member. Michael will hang on to it until next Christmas. Who will be the next lucky heir???

And a new family "heirloom" was introduced this year. This lamp is to be displayed prominantly throughout the year until it's passed on to the next heir next year.

There was good food! Then, people kinda got crazy!

Kelly, please don't hurt me for posting this...

We had a great time! Thanks, Kelly, for letting us have the celebration at your house!

Haunted House

This really isn't a haunted house. It's really a nice old house that has creaky floors and moaning beams. It doesn't have ghosts that roam the halls and it doesn't have vampire bats that bite your neck. Right?

When we were kids, we would spend summers at the Fait's house. Fun times, let me tell you! One summer we decided there was a treasure hidden in the stairs. I have memories of kicking each step to listen for a hollow step that held the treasure. We never found it.

I was told that there were vampire bats in the tower, so at night, we would wear blankets around our necks in order to prevent our necks from being bitten.

One time we put our cousin in a box and pushed her down the stairs. Remember that, Marjie? If you do, Michael did it. If you don't remember, well, maybe you have memory loss from the concussion.

Valentine's Day Memories, Vol. III

Valentine's Day was a huge popularity contest in junior high. As a fundraiser, the student council would sell candy-grams. A student would pay two bucks for each candy-gram they wanted delivered to their friends. Then during third period, the student council members would start delivering the candy-grams. Some of the students would end up with two, three, even four of these special deliveries, while I would end up with none. Every time. Nobody loved me. If I had been smart (and rich) I would have bought a couple for myself. Then I wouldn't have looked so pathetic.

BUT, now I am the most popular girl at my house. Well, second most popular. Rob makes me feel like a queen and it makes up for all those stinky years when I didn't have a Valentine.

Valentine's Day Memories, Vol. II

The first time Valentine's Day meant something other than just giving a little card to a classmate and receiving the obligitory card in return was when I was in the sixth grade. This was just after moving to Alturas. I didn't know anyone, and no one knew me. Or so I thought...

I had just walked home from school (I didn't ride the bus for fear of the teasing) and I remember hearing a knock at our front door. My mom answered the door and then called for me. Someone was at the door for me? I get to the door and standing there was Bill, a classmate of mine, holding a single rose and a giant candy Kiss. Holy freak, I was shocked!

I don't know why I was shocked. Probably because a boy had never made this gesture before. Bill had shown interest in me from the time we moved to Alturas. The first time we played volleyball in PE, I served a perfect set. He ran up to me afterwards and said, "You're a damn good player." Ooh, cussing; how sexy, right? I don't think I'd ever heard someone other than Poppy cuss (except for when Mom was really mad, but that's a whole other post).

I remember eating that giant kiss bit by bit and my family respecting the fact that the huge piece of chocolate was mine and only mine. Well, that's what I thought until one day I came home from school to bite a piece off and for some odd reason there was only a tiny bit of chocolate. I knew how much I had eaten, I took a mental picture each time I put the kiss away.

"MOOOOOooommmm!!! Somebody's been eating my kiss!!!!" I was livid. That was my sweetheart kiss. I wanted to cry. EXCEPT, it wasn't really MY kiss. Mom had replaced the giant kiss with a normal sized kiss and had bitten off parts of it to make it look like mine.

Valentine's Day Memories, Vol. I

Valentine's Day was a big day for me when I was little. It was fun going with Mom to pick out the Valentine's cards I'd give to my classmates. I remember signing each card, trying hard not to make it too obvious that I liked a particular boy. I'd usually end up giving him the ugliest card to throw him off.

The class would exchange cards and have a party with punch and cookies and cupcakes. I don't remember anyone ever not getting the same amount of cards as everyone else. There were many times I wanted to leave someone off my list. There was the girl that stole my flip-flops and that boy that picked his nose with his thumb. But, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I had left someone off the list.

We Were So Poor

Oftentimes at family gatherings we talk about fun times we had when we were kids. We talk about the annual Modoc County Fair, Surpise Valley Elementary School and our favorite teachers and not-so-favorite teachers, the SV Hill, and the Brumbaughs and the Gooches.

But it never fails that we dig up memories about how poor we were. I don't think it was that we were poor (or were we?), I think it had to do with the fact that we didn't have video games or more than three channels on the television. We grew up using our imaginations and learned to be resourceful with our environment and make the most of what we had. Here are some examples of how poor we were:

Disclaimer: this is by no means a dig at how our parents raised us. I think I speak for each of my siblings when I say I am grateful of how I was brought up and I have no regrets.

*We bathed in the same bath water. Usually the last child bathed in cold, gray water.
*Speaking of cold, gray water, when Michael and I would do dishes (did we really do the dishes?) we would play with the leftover chunky dishwater. We called this "Talatta". We pretended it was our secret recipe. Recipe for what, I don't know.
*We didn't have a basketball hoop until we moved to Texas. Before that, when we'd play basketball in the driveway, we'd put a frisbee on the roof and pretend that was the basket. We'd call an official time-out when the frisbee would fall off the roof.
*We played with dirt. There was this dirt pile in our back yard. We played on it daily in the summertime. We sledded down it in the wintertime. We lost lots of tools and utensils in the dirt. We even tried digging our own secret underground tunnel.
*My friend Pascha and I would roller skate in the middle of the street. We only had one pair of skates between the two of us, so she'd wear one skate and I'd wear the other and we 'd roll around skateboarder style.
*Speaking of the middle of the street, we could spend countless hours popping tar bubbles. The heat of the sun in the summertime would cause bubbles to form in the tar that was in the middle of the street. We popped them like pimples.
*This doesn't really fall into the "we were so poor" category, but one time when our septic tank backed up, we had to keep the toilet flushing to a minimum. To help us remember not to flush unless it was necessary(ie poop), Dad came up with a little ditty: If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. To this day, it's one of my favorite poems.

I'm sure there are more "we were so poor" moments, but I can't think of any. Can you guys think of any more that you want to add?