Ramblings: The Tale of the Bobbing Bobble Head

Saturday started out innocent enough. Jeremy took Alex and the boys to Alex's 2 hour football mini-camp. Jeremy said they ran the team really hard and at one point Alex complained that his lungs were aching. That kid is like the energizer bunny, so when he complains that he's tired, you KNOW he's not joking around. I love it--it's a rare sight.

While they were gone, Maddie and I ran some errands and I finally managed to pull the trigger on the couch for the piano room. I'm holding my breath that it turns out like I'm hoping--it's not going to be ready for about 6 weeks. I told the salesguy--"Point me in the direction of your fabric selection that can withstand having poop scrubbed off of it. Or vomit. And dirty footprints." We'll see how it all comes together when it's finally delivered.

After that we were invited over to some of our friends' house for a barbecue. They have an awesome set up with a giant back yard. We had TONS of food--ribs, steaks, shrimp, ice cream, cheesecake--you name it. After we porked out on all the food, the kids ran around getting filthy and exploring outside. I hijacked a chubby 1 year old to play with cuz he needs to love me so that his parents will let me babysit him sometime--or at least his cheeks. If you saw them, you'd want to steal them too.

Then a couple of the dads agreed to take the kids around on 4 wheelers.
The kids were LOVING it. The little boys took a couple of rounds with Jeremy and when Avery got off, he came running to me and said, "We need to get me one of those!"

(Grandma and Grandpa--we may need to invest in a mini one for the ranch. But you may disagree after you read the rest...)



When I saw Alex and his friend Max strapping on their gigantic bobble-head helmets, I got a tad nervous. I jokingly told someone that Alex doesn't always have the best judgement when he's excited and I hoped this was a good idea. But the guys got all loaded up and the four 4 wheelers took off into the woods.
About 30 minutes later, 3 of the 4 four wheelers (yes. You read that right. THREE. Only 3.) came back and off jumped a couple of completely drenched guys. Alex and Mike.

Apparently Alex had been driving while hollering over his shoulder to Max (evidence of his lack-of-judgement issues), and had driven himself directly into the lake that they were supposed to be steering AROUND. But the bad part is that Jeremy and Mike were ahead of the boys, and when they realized that they hadn't seen them in a bit, doubled back to find Alex standing by the lake. He was soaking wet and the 4 wheeler was floating about 10 feet out in the lake. He said he hadn't been able to turn fast enough to make it back out of the lake before the 4 wheeler started drifting out. So he bailed off and swam back.

Since Jeremy had the twins, Mike jumped in and walked out chest-deep to retrieve the bobbing 4 wheeler. Jeremy (always thinking of juicy blog material for me) managed to snap these with his iphone as Mike made it back to the shore. Alex kept apologizing over and over and offered to clean it or do whatever to fix it. Mike's like, "I'm pretty sure cleaning is not what it's in need of now..."And now a plug for Nintendo: The gameboy in his pocket that got totally submerged during his swim still worked when he got back to the deck. Let's hope the 4 wheeler pulls through as well. They worked on draining and lubricating it for a long time so that it has a chance of surviving. As of yesterday, it had started and then died, so we're hoping a little more time drying out will fix it. If not, Alex's "Christmas present" is going to spend a very short time in his possession and will reside about 5 minutes away at his friends' house.
Oh my, oh my. Leave it to our freak show to capsize a 4 wheeler at a Memorial Day BBQ. Sheesh.

Sunday was nutty too. The barf-bug finally hit Alex and I had to leave church after an hour to bring him home. Awhile after that, they took Avery to Jeremy because he had been running out of the bathroom and smacked his forehead on the corner of the sink. He had a huge lump and a bad cut that was bleeding everywhere. Then while Maddie was in class, her fingernail got ripped way low and was hurting. Then she started feeling sick to her stomach. A few minutes after that, her teacher said that she was picking something up off the ground and a girl went running for the door, and stepped really hard on her arm. So then she was a crying mess. Yikes.

After church, Jeremy went to pick up his sister, Alainna, who is in town while her piano-genius husband Stephen is here playing in the famous Van Cliburn competition. (Also, Stephen is brother to our manny, Joel. Are you confused yet?) All the kids were running in the front door after greeting her in the driveway and Avery played the "slam-the-door-game."

The game consists of being the first one inside, and then slamming the door as hard as you possibly can in the face of whoever's coming next . I don't know where it came from or why it's fun, but they always do it when they come in the front. Except this time Maddie's hand was in the doorway, and her four fingers at the knuckle were skinned and munched. They immediately started swelling and turning blue. She had a rough weekend. Forehead lump, ripped fingernail, upset stomach, stepped-on arm, and now busted hand. Luckily, after icing it and taking some drugs, she was able to sleep and this morning it looked much better. I was sure at least one of them was broken.

And today, we've been hitting the good sales doing some shopping and hanging around with Aunt Alainna. Jeremy's currently manning the grill with some chicken and shrimp as I type this. I'm just curious what else our freakshow can get into before this long weekend comes to an end...