"The BOAT"

"The Boat"... where do I even start? I can remember back 5 years or so ago that Justin and Brian decided to get a hunting boat. They were so excited about this boat, they sanded it, repainted it, got a duck blind for it and Daph even put her sewing skills to use and made a duck blind.

Of course every time they wanted to take the boat out they had to "work on the boat". Daphne and I would just laugh and say, "whatever". We spent many a nights watching the guys work on the boat getting it ready for the next days hunt. We noticed this becoming a pattern, they want to hunt... they have to work on the boat. We continued to laugh... for a few years in fact. The boat stayed in our driveway until we got a notice that it needed to be moved so we moved it down to The Caravellas lake house on Holy Lake. Then hunting season started back up so they guys had to go get the boat so they could work on it so they could then take it out to hunt... ARE YOU SEEING A PATTERN HERE?

Justin and Brian finally decided to just put it in storage up off of 380 so they could get to it easier. Sounds like a great plan to me... until we wrote a check every few months made out to Daphne Caravealla for the storage fee on the boat that NEVER LEFT THE STORAGE SPOT! Daph and I joked about it and then really started thinking that we should really NOT be wasting money on storage.

So of course many more months went by and still it sat collecting rain water, dead crickets and whatever else wanted to collect in the uncovered boat. Then Brian tells us that they will be moving to CO and that they should sell the boat. WHAT? That was the sweetest words to pass through my ears. They started talking about it and then thought maybe they would take it up to OK to the cabin but then remembered there was a boat there already. SO GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT...

YEP, it came to live in our backyard! OH FOR THE LOVE... as if I did not have problem enough getting the Expedition into the garage anyway so now there is a boat to watch out for. I just THOUGHT that would be a problem. A couple of months later we trade the Expedition in for a Suburban. Now we have a bigger problem, I have to somehow manage to get this extra four feet into the garage without hitting the boat. It took a few tries but I got it. ha ha ha

So now here sits the boat... what a joy to see EVERY time I have to get out of my garage :)

crickets chirping

crickets chirping........

MONTHS of crickets chirping...

FINALLY they decided that THIS time they are going to sell the boat.

One problem... it has to actually start if it is going to get sold. So back to square one... "I have to work on the boat". LOL We always laugh when "the boat" gets brought up. So Justin goes out to try and start it and NOTHIN'! It will not start, so he makes not one, not two but THREE trips to the auto part store to get whatever it is to get this boat started. A few weeks later this baby is ONLINE AND FOR SALE!!!

Of course we get a call from a kid and he lives way out where and wants a test drive. Justin tells him he will video it and send him the video. So we go out and make a video and oh gee, guess what, the boat will NOT START! SHOCKED I tell ya, just shocked... NOT

So back to the part store and a little elbow grease later big daddy has the thing running! WOOHOOOOOO. Well, of course we did not hear back from the kid. WHAT WHAT

A few weeks later Justin's dad says he has someone who wants to buy it. YEA! Justin takes off work to meet him at the lake to test it on the water. Of course he tries to start it 20 min. before he has to leave to meet him and NOTHING! SERIOUSLY? So Justin gets the hammer and starts hitting stuff (well, fixing stuff) and it cranks right up.

Justin left to meet the guy and got the boat in the water and forgot his waders so needless to say he got a little or a lot wet when he had to get out of the boat to move the truck off the loading ramp :) WHO CARES? WE ARE SELLING THE BOAT! RIGHT???

He gets in and cranks it up and he said that baby ran like its never run before. He was actually regretting getting rid of it... for a minute but then he saw the money in his hand and was over it. ha ha ha

Before he left to meet the guy I gave him "The Boat" folder with the title to the boat and title to the trailer and whatever else was in there. He also had a folder with other stuff in it. So when he gets all the paper work transferred he hands the guy the folder and THANKFULLY read the tab that read "The Boat (aka, The $ Pit) :) LOL He quickly grabbed it and said, "oh wait, you take this one".

SHOW ME THE MONEY BABY!

Now that "the boat" is gone I am just going to say it, I am having a little trouble getting the burban in the garage, I over shoot EVERY single time. Now I have to figure it out all over again. I know I will get over it though.

Lunch with Loved ones

Today was lunch with loved ones at the boys school. Basically it was a nice way to let the parents know that you should come have lunch with your child and then head on down to the book fair and get ready to spend some money! ha ha ha

Sophia and I headed up to the school and had lunch with the boys and then proceeded onto the book fair so I could see everything they wanted from posters, crazy pens, pencils, bookmarks and whatever else they can get away with selling at this thing. Jonah picked out the Star Wars Dictionary Book and Luke picked out Guinea Dog and an animal book. Of course Luke did not want his picture taken but mommy made him.

Lazy Luke Andrew Morton

I thought it was just a phase but boy was I ever WRONG! For as long as I can remember if we ask Luke to do something as simple as take a shower, brush your teeth, put your shoes on he comes back with one of the following excuses.

1. I'm itchy

2. I'm soooooo tired

3. My legs hurt

4. I'm thirsty

5. Ouch, your hurting me (this is when you are drying him off after a shower, he says that the towel hurts him because it is so dry) WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? or when I am shampooing his hair or brushing his teeth.

We say that if he was a Garbage Pail Kid his name would be Lazy Luke.

So today after school Luke was walking home from the bus stop... (EIGHT houses down from ours mind you.) He looks at me and says, "mom, can we move to a different house on Heritage Green?" I asked him if he meant Druid Hills and he said, "yes". I asked him why and he told me that he does not like walking that far from the bus stop. I could not help but laugh and grab him and hug him and carry him into the house laughing.

That boy cracks me up. I am going to go ahead and apologize to my future daughter in law NOW because I do not allow him to be lazy :)

13 months old

Sophia is hard to keep in one spot now. She does not like to stay in the stroller anymore so we have to take her a chair to soccer practice.

I want to change my name.

Last night out of the blue Jonah told me that he wanted to change his name. I asked him what he would like for his new name to be and why he wanted a new name. He told me that his name was B O R I N G and that he would like his new name to be Matt or Scott. I did not ask anymore about it and we headed up to bed. As we were saying our prayers he asked again if he could change his name.

I told him that when he was in my tummy that we prayed about it and that God really wanted us to have Jonah. He got really upset and buried his face in his pillow. I asked him to "sleep on it" and see what he thought about it in the morning. We said goodnight and walked out of the room.

A minute or so later I heard crying and not just a whimper, it was full on sobbing. I went in and Jonah was very upset. Of course Luke said, "oh Jonah, its just a name, stop crying." I asked him what was wrong and he proceeded to tell me that he did NOT like his name and it was BORING and he wanted to be called Matt or Scott.

I asked him if someone at school made fun of him and he told me no. I asked if someone on the bus made fun of him and he said no. I told him that he could tell mommy anything and tried to comfort him. He continued to tell me that nothing happened at school and that he just wanted to change his name. He continued to cry and I told him I loved him and said goodnight.

It was really hard to see him so upset. I know that is not even a big problem but it really broke my heart to see him like that.

When I went to wake them up this morning I was sure NOT to say Jonah and just talk to him. He did not say one word about it and neither did I. Let's hope when he comes home it stays that way :)

Heading Home!

This was the pile of laundry that came home! I washed EVERYTHING, including car seat covers We had a buffet in the floorboard of the truck! It was 9 loads of laundry.

We were not in any hurry to leave this morning so we did not even get up until 6:30 or so. We woke up to SIX inches of snow outside. When Jonah came down stairs he told me his eye hurt and when I told him to come close it was swollen and all red. Really? Julianne, I guess you got lucky this trip... except for your lips that is. :)

Armed with vomit bags in laps we were headed out at 8:17 am and planned on driving all the way home. We also decided to drive through Kansas, which we will NEVER do again. It seemed like it to forever to get to Texas. We hit the first Starbucks at the bottom of the mountain to get going, it was going to be a long day! We stopped for lunch at 12:15 and then at 4:15 stopped at Braums for some ice cream. Jonah walks into the bathroom, sticks his head out and says, "are you kidding me, he did not even flush the toilet, why would he do that"? Oh Jonah, just go.

At 6:00 we stopped at KFC for dinner and decided to put the kids in their jammies hoping they would fall asleep. We also filled the truck up and Justin got a five hour energy drink to make it all the way home. He followed it up with a Mountain Dew. Jonah had decided to get a bottle of water out of the cooler behind him and then just left it sitting up high and NOT closed. As we turned onto the highway he says. "ummmm, the cooler is spilling". We pull over and sure enough there is water everywhere but WHO EVEN CARED?????? not us, we kept on cruisin'.

By 8:00 Sophia fell asleep and cried out 5 times by 10:00. Poor baby sleeps on her stomach so she was not comfy. The boys movie was over at 10:00 so they both fell asleep and at the same time Sophia decided she would stay awake until 11:00. She finally fell back asleep for the rest of the trip home.

We pulled into the driveway at 12:24 am with a grand total of 16 hours and 7 min. in the car and 1943.3 miles for that trip.

Even with all the puke, poop and an avalanche we would do it all over again! We had a great time with some great friends!

WOOHOOOOO SPRING BREAK '11

Skiing... the last day

Today is the last day we will be skiing. You would have thought that we would have a routine down since we have done it all week. YEA RIGHT! We ARE the Mortons :) ha ha ha

We decided that since we could not get child care for the little ones for Thursday that Daph would stay with the Piper, Ansley, Sophia and Benton this morning while Justin, the boys and I went up so we could all ski together then after lunch I would come home with the boys and watch Sophia and Benton while Brian and Daph went up with the girls.

We woke up to it snowing so we knew it was going to be a great day to ski. So Brian, Justin and I loaded up the boys, all the skis and ski boots. We get to the parking lot to get everyone ready to hit the slopes. We open the back of the truck and tell the boys to get grab their ski boots and they both say that those are not their boots. WHAT? So we decided to put the boot on the girls skis and sure enough we got there with the girls ski boots. Seriously? By this time we are ready to start drinking... the boys were not listening as usual... and the whining continued.

We called Daph to see if she could bring the boys boots to us so we would not loose the horrible parking spot we were already in :) She met us and dropped the boots off and we were set!

Brian went off to ski by himself and Justin and I took the boys up. We got on the lift and the boys were so excited. It was our first run together and the boys did great! Of course it was pretty flat so we did a little walking and poling but at least the boys had fun. We did a few more runs and by lunch they were exhausted and ready to go.

We returned the boys skis and then mine and were off to switch with Daph so she and the girls could come out. The boys and I went home and had some lunch and then hung out waiting for everyone else to get back. I did a little packing trying to get organized since we were leaving the next morning. That night we were going to take the older kids to "childcare" while we went out to dinner with Benton and Sophia. Of course Jonah was complaining about how babyish it looked but of course did not want to leave when it was time to go. They had pizza for dinner, watched Open Season 3 and made s'mores.

Tubing In Winter Park

This morning Daph and I had made breakfast for the whole gang to come eat. Daph of course had the recipes and I just helped make them :) We had a wonderful french toast casserole and an egg white casserole.

We had all taken the day off from skiing and decided to go tubing. We loaded the car and were off. When we got to the tubing place the wind was blowing 3o miles an hour and about blow us over. We got our tubes and helmets and were ready to hit the mountain. There was a magic carpet that took you to the top and then you just went down. We went down the 'black" hill and let me tell you... it was FAST! I was actually scared because I went down backwards over half way and when I finally turned I saw Landry flip out of his tub and was headed right for him. I do not know how I missed him but did!

I only went two times and and then took Sophia to the truck because it was so windy. Mia joined us because she was tired and wanted out of the wind too. We went and sat in the truck and watched a movie and had a snack while we waited on everyone to finish.

After tubing we joined the Amezcuas back at the village for some ice cream and then headed back to the condo to rest before meeting everyone for dinner at Denos. We were going to need to rest since there were going to be 21 of us at dinner, 13 of those people being kids 8 years and younger. We were impressed at how well they all did.

I had a crazy idea to make shirts for everyone that spelled out "SPRING BREAK '11" and thought it would be a great picture. So after dinner we were loosing daylight so I passed out the shirts to everyone and had to get everyone lined up right. Did I mention we had 13 kids? As you can see in the picture above the "'11" was not very happy :) Jonah had the "N" shirt and was yelling out, N is for nerd! Then Luke decided to join in and he was chanting, "E is for Idiot", ha ha ha then, "E is for irritating". Thats my boy! LOL

We actually got a few good pics and there were even people stopping asking if they could take a picture of the kids too.

We were so crazy by the end that we even started spelling words out...