So this is what peace and quiet sounds like?!

This house has been quite chaotic this week and now it's soooooo quiet! Josalyn hasn't been home since she left for school at 6:00 a.m. yesterday morning. She went to her friend's house after practice and then went to the Cubs and Marlins game with them. She had to be at practice at 8:00 a.m. this morning, which didn't make Scott very happy. He was hoping it wasn't going to be until about 10:00. :)

You would think after that the child would be coming home, wouldn't you? Well, aren't you funny! No, then she is going with the same friend and a few others to the Extreme Thing at Desert Breeze Park for the day and sleeping over again! Ahhh, to live the life of a teenager. It certainly would be nice to be that care free again but never again would I want to relive my teenage years. Once was enough!

Dylan and I are the only ones home and since he just loves hanging out with his mom, he has been constantly watching out the front window for any signs of life from the neighborhood kids so he can go out and play. I keep trying to tell him he needs to learn to sleep past 7:00 a.m. and then he wouldn't have to wait for hours for the rest of the neighborhood to wake up. But, just as with everything else, Mom is just a dunce.

One L and One W

The first game of the week started out really good. They kept it a scoreless game until the 4th inning. Then Bonanza scored a couple runs on us and things just got worse from there. It was sad to watch because half of the team were working hard trying to get the game back and the other half just flat gave up as soon as those first few runs were scored. Needless to say, that was the "L" for the week.

Man, she hit that one so hard that her bat was vibrating!!! (just kidding) She did get some good hits against Rancho though and then managed to steal her way home. This was a big game for Josalyn because it was finally the last game they had to play with her as the only pitcher.

When they played Bonanza on Tuesday, the coach tried putting another girl in who has been going to a pitching coach, hoping she would be able to finish up the game. Well, Josalyn hoped she wasn't going to have to go back in but ended up right back in the next inning to finish up the game. We're hoping she will get put in as catcher the innings she isn't pitching but we'll just have to wait and see.

Good game ladies! 12 - 7 for the Lady Valley Vikings!! We're looking forward to a good game against Desert Pines next Monday.

Two little sickies!

Okay, I don't know what I did to deserve it but Scott was home from work on Tuesday and Wednesday and Josalyn ended up staying home on Wednesday, too!! Now anyone who stays home and has their regular daily routine can probably appreciate how badly it messes with your daily schedule to have people at home when they should be elsewhere! Not to mention the fact that Scott can do nothing for himself when he's sick. I have to keep reminding him that I have two children who are younger and more needy than he, just to get him to try to do things for himself. Don't get me wrong, I know it's miserable to be sick but MUST YOU make everyone else miserable with all your whining?!?!?!

Scott got out of bed and walked into the living after finally coming to life Wednesday morning. As soon as he noticed Josalyn sitting there he said in his saddest voice, "I'm sick (cough, cough) (holding up two fingers) for twoooooooo daaaaaays!" It really is pretty comical to watch the "tough guy" become such a needy little thing because he has a stuffy nose and a cough.

I just hope and pray these two get over it and don't pass it on to me and Dylan before getting rid of it. Ya just gotta love those spring colds! Especially when they're mixed in with the annual allergy attacks.

Spring Break comes to an end

Okay, now we can get back to normal life. The kids were out of school all last week for Spring Break. As you can see, Josalyn spent a lot of her time catching up on the rest she's missed since softball started. We didn't see much of her the first few days of Spring Break unless we went to her room and watched her sleep! Finally, by the time the weekend rolled around and it was time for the softball tournament her school's varsity team was playing in, she was able to get up before 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. and get ready to go to the softball park.

Dylan spent a lot of his time out playing with his friends in the neighborhood. They were all good to stick around the neighborhood and usually had to be made to come in at night because it was getting so dark outside.

That is one nice thing about spring in Las Vegas. Most of the time, by the end of February or the first part of March it's warm enough that they can go outside and play. Cabin fever doesn't last near as long here as it used to in Utah.

Dylan is finally starting to grow out of his allergies a little bit and that makes it much nicer this time of year. In the past, he's always had to stay in the house a lot at this time of year because the pollen would get his allergies going so bad that his asthma would kick in and take him for a ride. Now it's a little more carefree when he goes out to play and not so much of a worry. Thank goodness!

Yes, my stress level was a wee bit higher with the kids being home all week and Scott being off for three of the seven days. By about day four I was getting a little whacked in the head and the sillies got ahold of me. I happened to walk past the party favors they gave us when we went to a customer appreciation party for Terex a few weeks ago. Needless to say, the little devil in me told me to play dress up with Scott and take his picture while he had our sexy glasses on and the really cool blinking crown they had put on my head. My personal favorite is the pink glasses.

These are the glasses they slapped on Scott when we walked in. He was not the least bit impressed!

Don't you wish you were as tricky as Scott?!?!?!

All I'm gonna say is ... HANDS OFF LADIES, he's MINE!!! (giggle, giggle)

HAPPY EASTER!!

The Easter Bunny managed to find our house, and if you can imagine, he left a new baseball mitt for Dylan and new softball cleats and batting gloves for Josalyn. Needless to say, Dylan was up at about 6:30 a.m. and ready to start finding the eggs. After about 2 or 3 minutes he had all of them gathered up except for three. I think he was up scoping out where all the eggs were before he ever let anyone know he was awake.

After he got a little help with finding the last few eggs, we decided to go to the middle school by our house and break in Dylan's new mitt and get the new off Josalyn's cleats. Dylan did pretty good for having a mitt that wasn't completely broken in and it definitely didn't take Josalyn long to get her shoes filthy.

After watching his sister, Dylan has decided he wants to learn how to pitch. He actually did really well for his first time trying.

Notice the iPod earphones in her ears. I tell ya, these kids don't go anywhere anymore without earphones plugged into their heads!

The look of determination

Doesn't she look angry?! She scares me with that look she gets when she pitches. Looks like she wants to hit ya with the ball!

Dylan was fearless though and got in the batter's box while Josalyn was pitching . After getting hit the other day, he was a little gun shy and kept backing out of the box. Finally, he decided to stay in the box and got hit again in the leg. It wasn't as bad this time though and he kept right on swinging. Scott was the catcher, as he normally is, and I was the official ball shagger. I did try hitting for a few minutes but Josalyn must have been mad at me today because she kept trying to hit me!!! (just kidding) She really scares me with her inside strikes though and I finally gave up on batting.

It's a family affair

We all ended up going to Josalyn's practice on Saturday because their coach doesn't really have anybody to help with practices. One of the Spanish teachers helps her coach bases at games but doesn't really do a lot of helping when it comes to practices. Scott really does miss coaching. He was happy Saturday when he got to take part in his favorite area of coaching ... working with the pitchers.

Josalyn enjoyed the practice because she gaught to catch for most of the practice. She really misses playing catcher. She likes to pitch but I don't think she likes the pressure of the position. She's a lot more relaxed when she's catching and enjoys the game much more.

Scott is working with two of their newbie pitchers and is loving every minute of it. He's complains about the moody little girls but in all reality, he knows how much those moody little girls add to his life. We got to see one of the girls who was on our team when we were coaching at Josalyn's last game. It's nice to see most of them are still loving the game and haven't quit playing.

The agony of defeat

Well, the second game didn't end quite as well as the season starter. The girls played a good game and gave it their all but they ended up short by three runs at the end of the game. The final score was 11 - 8. Short of the few mistakes that were made, they gave everything they had to pull it out in the end and almost did it but ran out of time. Stupid clocks anyway!

They did take their loss in stride though and it was nice to see, especially after the other team displayed such poor sportsmanship.


I pity Josalyn having to be the only pitcher they're depending on right now. It's a lot of work to pitch constantly with no relief for even just one inning. March 23rd will be a welcome day. Then she can pitch but also have another pitcher who can come in to relieve her once in a while.
For such a small little thing, she sure can rip the ball when she gets a piece of it. Nice hit Josalyn! And thanks Dylan for helping shag all the foul balls! I guess the raspberry on his side didn't slow him down too much.

Better luck Friday ladies. We know you can do it!!!

What an eventful day!

Okay, so it didn't start out so eventful until I decided to go ahead and do the online application for the job Scott talked me into applying for with the city. Well, let's just say, anybody who gets through that application without hurting themselves, the computer, or someone else should get the job! Then to make things worse, after I finished the first two out of four sections, I click continue to go to section three and the screen comes up with not much written on it other than the word TEST and a continue button. Needless to say, that raised my blood pressure a few notches. I haven't done that part of the application because by that point it was almost time to go get Scott and Dylan so we could go watch Josalyn's first softball game.


We ended up getting Dylan out of school a few minutes early so we could get there to see the start of her first game. This is a picture of her warming up before the game started. They did a great job and won the game 13 - 0. Josalyn only walked two batters and let two hit. By the bottom of the first inning they were already up by 9. When they got up to bat again, the coach was having some of them leave the bag before the pitch was thrown on purpose just so they would get out and Mojave would have a chance to get back up to bat. It was good for our girls but sad to watch the other team get beat without even scoring a run in their first game of the season.


On the way to the game, Dylan told Scott and I that he was playing four-square this morning before school started and ended up stumbling and falling on the pavement, scraping his hip. He can be a very good actor, so at first I thought maybe he was just exaggerating a little. That was, until he told us, and there's a BIG band aid over it!

I guess he did do a pretty good job. What do you think? I really like the white stuff from the band aids that's still stuck all over his skin. Looks sore and makes me think, "OUCH!"

I'm still having a hard time understanding how he was able to do that with a shirt on. But then there are a lot of things that little boys do I can't figure out. Makes a girl say, hmmmmmmmmmm.

Moose was left in the back yard the whole time we were gone and was very glad when we got home. When Scott let him in he went ripping through the house jumping around and looked like he was about to do a flip in the living room. After begging for McDonald's and not getting his way, he laid around pouting the rest of the night. Oh well, at least his hair looks nice and pretty after Scott gave him a bath yesterday.


Don't you just love the platypus looking feet. At least he's only got one turned that way. He looks really funny when he turns them both out like that.

Relaxing weekends are sooooo nice

It's so nice when you can have a nice, relaxing weekend at home without having a lot of running to do and places you have to be. After dropping Josalyn off at practice on Saturday morning, we didn't have to go anywhere we didn't want to and it was sooooooooooo nice!

Scott was nice enough to be the morning taxi driver and I got to stay in bed and sleep! What a sweeeeeetie! We spent most of Saturday lounging around and doing as little work as possible.

Dylan was a big help and did all of his chores and even helped with a few that weren't even on his list. I love it when they like to be helpful and do things around the house. Cuts down on my workload a lot!

Josalyn went to her usual Saturday practice and then got to go to the UNLV softball game with one of her friends from the team. Then after spending the night she had to come home and finish her homework.

Ewwwwwwww!!!

We keep warning her that her face will freeze that way if she keeps doing that every time she has to do homework.

No really, she has been working on a big English project for about 2 1/2 weeks now and was trying to get it finished since she has three softball games this week and won't have much time to finish in the evenings. This is actually what her face usually looks like when she first wakes up in the morning. She's like her mom and takes a while to wake up and come to life in the mornings.

Dylan had a friend come over for a while and they made Scott give up the Game Cube long enough for them to play for a while. It was a life saver for me when my friend called and asked if Dylan would like a playmate for a while. You would think it's spring break around here . . . it was like all the kids in this neighborhood disappeared for most of the weekend and Dylan was getting EXTREMELY bored. So thank you Tonya for bringing Jessie over to play and saving my nerves from hearing "I'm bored and there's nothing to do" at least for a while.

Teenagers LOVE early mornings

Our household rises very early in the morning. Josalyn is usually up by 4:30 a.m. and in the shower getting a start on her day. Scott follows right after her at 4:45 a.m. Since the school she attends is a magnet school, she has one more class than regular public school students and starts school an hour before the regular school day begins.

After starting softball practices and practicing 2-3 hours a day six days a week she has started to really understand the meaning of dog tired! Now morning comes and her face looks a lot like it does in this picture I snuck in on her at 5:30 this morning.

All of her hard work is paying off though. She just found out yesterday that she will most likely be the starting pitcher for their first game next week. CONGRATULATIONS JOSALYN!! We knew you could do it. Now just smile pretty for the picture and stop growling!

Safety First!

Okay, here's one I haven't heard before. It always amazes me how these sickos can take a kind deed and turn it into something to fear. Please read and share with all the women in your life. You never know when the person offering help is going to turn out to be some kind of weirdo.

NEW FORM OF KIDNAPPING
A new twist on kidnapping from a very smart survivor:

About a month ago there was a woman standing by the mall entrance passing out fliers to all the women going in. The woman had written the flier herself to tell about an experience she had, so that she might warn other women.

The previous day, this woman had finished shopping, went out to her car and discovered that she had a flat.

She got the jack out of the trunk and began to change the flat. A nice man dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase walked up to her and said, 'I noticed you're changing a flat tire. Would you like me to take care of it for you?'

The woman was grateful for his offer and accepted his help. They chatted amiably while the man changed the flat, and then put the flat tire and the jack in the trunk, shut it and dusted his hands
off.

The woman thanked him profusely, and as she was about to get in her car, the man told her that he left his car around on the other side of the mall, and asked if she would mind giving him a lift to his car.

She was a little surprised and she asked him why his car was on other side.
He explained that he had seen an old friend in the mall that he hadn't seen for some time and they had a bite to eat, visited for a while, and he got turned around in the mall and left through the wrong exit, and now he was running late.

The woman hated to tell him 'no' because he had just rescued her from having to change her flat tire all by herself, but she felt uneasy. (Trust that gut feeling!)

Then she remembered seeing the man put his briefcase in her trunk before shutting it and before he asked her for a ride to his car.

She told him that she'd be happy to drive him around to his car, But she just remembered one last thing she needed to buy. (Smart woman!!)

She said she would only be a few minutes; he could sit down in her car and wait for her; she would be as quick as she could be. She hurried into the mall, and told a security guard what had happened, the guard came out to her car with her, but the man had left. They opened the trunk, took out his locked briefcase and took it down to the police station.

The police opened it (ostensibly to look for ID so they could return it to the man). What they found was rope, duct tape, and knives. When the police checked her 'flat' tire, there was nothing wrong with it; the air had simply been let out. It was obvious what the man's intention was, and obvious that he had carefully thought it out in advance. The woman was blessed to have escaped harm. (Amen, thank you, God!)

How much worse it would have been if she had children with her and had them wait in the car while the man fixed the tire, or if she had a baby strapped into a car seat? Or if she'd gone against her judgment and given him a lift?

Share this with any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it. Better to be safe than sorry.

Wow!

If you like architecture and seeing a city grow from the ground up, check out this website. It shows Dubai and the growth there over the years as well as the projected growth! And to think I thought Vegas was growing at a pretty fast pace!!!

I wonder if anyone there ever sleeps or if they just drink TONS and TONS of coffee!

(Just in case you're slow like me and can't figure out why the picture only opens and not the website, click on the Wow! title and not the picture to go to the site.) And who said blonds can't figure it out themselves!

A funny to share

I am a member of a group called momsville and while I was surfing, I ran across a funny little post there today and wanted to share with you. It's a members only group but the poster gave permission to share as long as her name was removed so here it is and I hope it makes you laugh as hard as it did me!

Two Troublemakers

A couple had two little mischievous boys, ages 8 and 10. They were always getting into trouble, and their parents knew that if any mischief occurred in their town, their sons would get the blame.

The boys' mother heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The clergyman agreed and asked to see them individually.

So, the mother sent her 8-year-old first, in the morning, with the older boy to see the clergyman in the afternoon.

The clergyman, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, "Where is God?"

The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there with his mouth hanging open.

The clergyman repeated the question. "Where is God?"

Again, the boy made no attempt to answer.

So, the clergyman raised his voice some more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed, "Where is God!?"

The boy screamed and bolted from the room. He ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him.

When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, "What happened?"

The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied: "We are in real BIG trouble this time! God is

missing, and they think we did it!"

Saturday FUN!

Man oh man! Not only do we get to do the softball thingy Monday through Friday but we also get to go every Saturday morning for two hours!!! Jealous, aren't ya? I knew it. Well, Scott got to be the lucky dog today. He's a good sport when it comes to stuff like that and to be honest, I think he kind of misses coaching all of those hormonal little girls. (giggle, giggle, giggle)

While Scott and Josalyn were doing the practice thing, Dylan and I started building him a website. (We get a free webpage with our internet service.) He LOVES Pokemon so that is what his website is about. I just wish my fingers and the high-speed internet could keep up with his mind and his tongue. He's spitting stuff out for me to type faster than my witto fingers can go. Oh well, I guess I used to get that excited when I was his age too. I just didn't have cool stuff like web pages to play with. The coolest thing when I was a kid was having an Atari game system. (laughing hard) Wow! Am I really THAT OLD?!?!?!

Anyway, when we get it all finished we will post the link so you can have a gander if you'd like. Enjoy your weekend and try to have at least as much fun as I am. =P

Yes, I'm still playing catch-up

It's NASCAR week in Las Vegas so a lot of my family members come from Utah and Washington to go to the races. If you don't know a lot about NASCAR, Friday is qualifying day, Saturday is the Busch race, and Sunday is the Sprint Cup race. Welllllll, lets just say qualifying can get REALLY boring. They all come out one at a time and do like three laps to qualify for the race and determine their starting positions. This kind of mundane day is what lead my sister-in-law and my three neices to decide it was worth blowing off the whopping $25.00 ticket to go shopping and have a girl's day out instead.

Since they are like me and get all turned around on directions when they are away from home, they decided to let me join in their fun and be the navigator. Needless to say, it was a wild ride with all the extra traffic in town for the race but we got there in one piece. Parking was another story though. I have never seen a place as bad as Vegas where everyone wants a front row parking spot or as close as humanly possible. So once we got the adventure of parking behind us we headed into the outlet stores.

It was a lot of fun to be able to catch up with them all since I usually only get to see them during NASCAR week each year. We browsed through a lot of stores and even dared take our lives in our own hands and go in the Coach store. They were having a big sale and I could not believe how many women were cram packed into that one little store. It only took me about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes before I told my niece, "I'll be waiting outside for you guys when you're done." She responded back, "I'm coming with you Aunt Karen." So we left the madness and went outside to get some fresh air and peace.

After shopping for a while and smelling food in the air we all decided it was time for lunch. Half opted for Chinese and half went for pizza. It was definitely too much food and we were all too miserable to shop anymore after that. I'm just glad that it was a nice, beautiful day, and we got to spend some time together doing something fun. Thanks again for inviting me girls!

Okay, so I'm a slooooow starter!

Okay, okay, so I know you're supposed to post something new on a daily basis but this is just one more step to add into the routine so I'm sure it might take a while for my little pea brain to remember to post every day. It's not like a bazillion people are reading my blog anyway.

Well, let's see, life has definitely gotten busier since Josalyn started softball practices. Usually it's a great setup because they have a late bus that comes at 4:00 and picks up all the kids who stay after school for clubs, practices, etc. BUT softball practice doesn't end until 5:00 so we get to drive to the other side of town every day at the best time ever ... RUSH HOUR! :/ It wouldn't be too bad if the crazy drivers would stay off the roads but wait, I guess that might mean I would have to stay home too! That won't work. On the plus side though, we usually have plenty of time in the car to hear about everything that happened at practice that day on the way home.

Josalyn definitely has her hands full. Right now she is the only girl on the team with both pitching and catching experience who is eligible to play. Another girl, Ashley, who can't play right now due to grade issues is the only other "sure" pitcher they have. It looks like the first few games could be a bit interesting. It will be a great experience for her though and that is the most important thing. I just hope we don't have to sell Dylan for gas money with the cost of fuel these days. Grrrrrrr.