How I'm missing my wireless!!

Picture this: You are sitting in a nice pizza and pasta restaurant on your wonderful three week family vacation. Everyone found something they want on the menu – even your two picky children who eat the same things over and over. Dinner arrives and it tastes heavenly and everyone is enjoying one another’s company. All is well. You feel generous, so you share your fabulous calzone with your child. Well, karma hates you. The next thing you know, your daughter is clutching her throat and your husband is all but shoving you out of your chair (you… the nurse) in order to do the Heimlich Maneuver because your darling daughter was a little over-zealous and choked on some cheese. It turns out that she’s fine and the adrenaline rush dies down. You pay for your dinner and you get up to leave. Wait… hubby and son need to go to the bathroom. Hubby and son take a ridiculously long time in said bathroom so you call hubby’s cell phone and this is what you hear “Hunter peed his pants. There’s pee everywhere. We’ll be right out.” Wonderful. I know, I know… you’re all dying to know how you, too, can get in on such a wonderful experience. So allow me to let you in on a little secret: Just follow me around for a while. Trust me, it’s a laugh a minute. You won’t be disappointed. Promise.

So here we are in Carbondale, Colorado. We just had that dinner adventure at a little place called White House Pizza. Luckily, we are still operating on Kentucky time and we went to dinner at 5pm. As it turns out, 5pm = Happy Hour and Happy Hour = 2.99 margaritas. Nothing is too overwhelming after two margaritas. We have been in Colorado since yesterday. I LOVE Colorado. There’s nothing that compares to the Rocky Mountains coming into view on the horizon. It’s the end of July and some of the peaks are still snow capped. Amazing. I can’t wait to move here. I know it will happen eventually. Patrick and I are both in love with this area. It just doesn’t seem to be happening fast enough.

Since the last time I managed to blog we have been to Mount Rushmore. It was incredible. You can spot it from the road but it is absolutely worth the $10 parking fee to go in and actually see it up close. It’s not something I can describe, really. I’m so glad that we went and that our kids got to see it. The attention to detail in the sculptures is amazing. It took 13 years to finish and you can tell the sculptor put his heart into it. That’s not the best part, though. The best part is that Patrick took the kids up some trail and disappeared for 20 minutes only to come back with two kids who had handfuls of what appeared to be a hairball that was possibly coughed up be a very large cat… with really coarse fur. Apparently, they scraped a buffalo hyde and got to keep the disgusting results…? I don’t know. I’ve just been trying to avoid touching the things since then.

And here I sit… I just finished sweeping out the camper for the 1436th time. Thank god for camping out in the mud. If I couldn’t do housework on my vacation, I would just be lost. Check back, though, I’m sure I’ll have more to report within the next two weeks!

South Dakota is action packed!

Okay... so South Dakota isn't really all that action packed. Nonetheless, hello from South Dakota! You are officially reading the blog of the only family in America who takes a vacation to somewhere like Minnesota and South Dakota instead of the beach. :-) We have been gone since Wednesday and we've had tons of fun. We water parked it in Wisconsin Dells for two days, camped behind the county fair in Blue Earth, Minnesota for a night and now we're happily set up in Rapid City, South Dakota. We're waiting for Patrick to get back from a mountain bike ride so that we can go check out Mount Rushmore.

We've had so much fun. First of all, Wisconsin Dells is THE place to go if you want to spend a few days going to gigantic indoor/outdoor water parks. The place is crawling with them. And if you're lucky enough to have a scaredy cat 6 year old girl, you might get to hear such jewels as "No! I'm going to die!" and "You're trying to KILL ME!" as she claws frantically and tries to get out of a family intertube on an arguably calm and pleasant water slide. It was definitely an entertaining two days.

Patrick was SO excited because he'd found a free campground in this little place called Blue Earth, Minnesota. As an added bonus, there was a huge statue of the Jolly Green Giant. That pretty much sold me on the idea... Anyway, the campground was actually at the county fairgrounds and you could camp free for 48 hours. Of course, that applies 51 weeks of the year when the fair isn't in town. What are the odds of us pulling up in the middle of the fair? Seriously? We camped free anyway and I can't decide if it's #1) because they were gracious hosts or #2) because they thought it would be hilarious to park us directly behind a big barn where they were later going to be having a dance with music so loud I'm convinced you could hear it in Kentucky. On the bright side, Patrick finally started snoring and then - out of nowhere - abruptly woke up singing along with Sweet Caroline.

Now we're in Rapid City. We stopped at the Corn Palace and Wall Drug on the way through South Dakota. The Corn Palace has fabulous popcorn balls and I don't know if you can order them online but if you can, I suggest everyone buy a box. Wall Drug was a neat old west style town. The kids really enjoyed it. Griffin enjoyed peeing in the parking lot. So it was a win-win for everyone. I'm busting at the seams to go see Mount Rushmore. It better be as amazing as I imagine it will be or I'll be down the rest of the day. I will post some pictures from the trip with my next post.

I think we're off tomorrow to finish our trek to the ultimate destination: Colorado! I am in love with Colorado and if I could find a job while we were out here and get a relocation package, we'd probably never come home. :-)

To be continued...

oh, children...

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really cut out to be a mother. I mean, for real, I think my kids' goal in life is to stress me out as much as possible. I love them so much my heart can barely contain it but they are nuts. Today is my first full day off work this week so I have been just hanging out and relaxing, doing laundry and some dishes here and there but mainly sitting because that's what I like to do. Patrick was messing with our fish tanks and all was quiet and then out of nowhere something crashed to the floor upstairs and I thought it was quite possible that perhaps a large meteor or maybe an airplane had just crashed through my ceiling and landed in the kids room. It was silent for about two seconds and then Hunter started crying and Katelyn started screaming... "MOMMY!! Hunter pulled over my clothes shelves!" Translation: Mommy, Hunter just somehow pulled over my big, heavy 5 drawer dresser. On himself. And clothes are all the hell over the place. Not to mention I still had a 3 foot tall Christmas tree - yes, in July - sitting on top of it fully decorated from December. Might as well leave it there now, right? It's getting closer to Christmas again every day. Anyway, after Patrick picked the dresser back up and I folded up all Katelyn's jeans and neatly shoved them back in her drawers I finally got to examine Hunter. Luckily, the dresser only caught his left arm but he still has some pretty impressive battle wounds.
What was he doing in order to pull the dresser over on himself, you may ask? Well he had a jumprope tied to one of the knobs, of course! There's no doubt in my mind that he was probably trying to come up with some sort of contraption that would enable him to be like Spiderman and fly and climb up the sides of stuff. But I digress... I finally got them settled down to dinner tonight and I sat down with them to try to discuss with them the many dangers of tying ropes to things and attaching them in any way to yourself and this is the look I got from my SIX year old.

I don't know about moms of pre-teen and teenage girls but I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that Patrick's probably going to have to be locked in a nuthouse when she starts going through puberty and has all the crazy hormonal mood swings I have. Seriously. I'm enough for anyone to handle. What is he going to do with two of me? I feel for him. Really, I do.

Speaking of my husband, I love him dearly. He also drives me crazy but I love him. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have him to balance me out. He's pretty much my opposite but I guess that's how it works. He loves to disagree with me, though. If I like a particular place to eat he'll swear up and down he hates it (even when we're eating there and he's saying "mmm, this is so good"). If I say I love our puppy, he says he hates her (even when I turn around two minutes later and he's totally nuzzling and baby talking to her). I swear sometimes I think he'd argue for the sake of arguing even if I told him the sky was blue. Is that all husbands or is mine just that special? Also... he likes to sneak and eat everything I bake even when he claims he absolutely DID NOT eat those brownies. Luckily, I have Special Investigator Katelyn on the case. She snuck this picture of him one morning after he claimed my mysteriously disappearing brownie batch was not his fault. It still makes me laugh every time I see it.

He thinks he's sneaky. :-) I promised a better blog this time and hopefully this one was a bit more entertaining. I'm on a mission tonight to convince Patrick we should go to Six Flags tomorrow so I'm going to go formulate my plan of attack for when he gets home.

My brain is fried...

I just keep telling myself only 4 more work nights until vacation. After Tuesday night, I get to enjoy three relaxing weeks off with my family. Relaxing probably isn't the right word but at least I will get to sleep at night and be a normal person for a while. I didn't even have a hard night last night but I was so exhausted when I came home that I fell asleep on the couch with the dog laying on top of me. Four more nights.



We went camping at Green River Lake last weekend. The main thing that was figured out is that my fishing abilities are far superior to Patrick's. We fished for maybe an hour and I reeled something in almost every time I put my line in the water. Poor Patrick, I think he was very disappointed. On the bright side for him, the biggest thing I caught was only about the size of my hand.

I've managed to juggle three summer classes, work and home (although the laundry IS piled up pretty high) over the last several weeks. I just wrapped up two of the classes and I'm fairly sure I've pulled an A in both. Now I have to buckle down and focus on finishing my chemistry class. It's completely mind numbing. I think that's part of why I was so tired this morning. I was mentally spent. Oh well. I will still ace the class regardless of how much I hate it because that's how I roll. I just can't wait until I decide what I want to be when I grow up - now I'm considering law school for my final destination instead of the nurse practitioner route. Who knows.

I can't focus on much lately aside from upcoming vacations. We have our three week vaca out west coming up and three weeks after we get back, we're going to Tybee Island with Lacey & Travis and Leslia and Lindsey LeMaster. I'm almost more pumped about that one. I loooove Tybee. I think everyone should go there and check it out. It's my favorite beach. It's so small and non-touristy. Plus, they have a fabulous bar on the beach with a big wall of slushie machines full of those frozen concoctions that help me hang on. :-)

And I'm done. This update sucked. I apologize. I'm sure I'll be feeling more motivated and witty once I'm off work for three weeks. So hang in there with me, please.

Toothless

Between my two children right now, there's a total of four missing teeth. In a fit of sisterly love, Katelyn "lovingly" knocked one of Hunter's top front teeth loose. He subsequently pulled it over dinner at Tumbleweed and made me lose my appetite in record time. (Interesting tidbit: I'm a nurse, but could never be a dentist... mouths and teeth disgust me and the thought gives me full body shivers.) Anyway, Hunter will remain toothless for another two years, maybe three if we're lucky. Fingers crossed on that... right? Who doesn't want the kindergarten through second grade pictures to feature a big, gaping hole in their child's smile?Katelyn, on the other hand, has lost her teeth the natural way. Unfortunately for the tooth fairy, she has lost three of them in the past week and a half. I think the trouble began when she lost the first one and the silly, silly tooth fairy gave in to her demand for $20. Since then, the price has decreased to $5 because, let's face it, the tooth fairy's little Coach purse is empty and sometimes she has to steal a little somethin' from Mr. Tooth Fairy's wallet. If it weren't for the fact that she cried after the last one came out and claimed that she "looked ridiculous", I'd swear she was doing it on purpose. Would it be so wrong if the tooth fairy simply left a note under her pillow that said "What the hell, kid? No money for you. Thanks for playing."?

Poor thing. She doesn't look ridiculous.

I really should go to bed. I've worked the past three nights and now I'm off for the weekend. I like to try to keep chugging right along and stay awake after my last night of the week but I rarely make it all day. I'm vascillating back and forth on whether I should humor my sociology professor and take part in the "Getting to know your classmates" discussion board. I hate that kind of thing. Every fiber of my being wants to type up a note that says 'I'm Amanda and I honestly don't give a crap who anyone else is. I'm just here to get an 'A' and move on. Peace.' I know, I know... that's the stand-offish (and apparently egotistical) Liles in me. I can't help it.

That's all... I think I'm going to have some Cocoa Puffs and watch Spongebob before I go to bed. Here's to hoping Patrick puts all the laundry away while I snooze. :-)

...the king of awkward quotes...

As a 'welcome home after 5 hours of being sold to someone else' present, I took Griffin and the kids to PetSmart today and did a little dog shopping. I bought her a new crate (smaller, so she won't pee in it, yay!), a new rope toy, a couple of tennis balls, a bunch of treats and some new shampoo because she's smelly. In return, we got home and as soon as I settled in with my Diet Coke I heard "Mommy! Oww! Griffin bit me in the penis!"... nice. Welcome home, dog. We love you, too!

I have to work tonight. It's my first night of three in a row and I'm hoping against hope that I get an easy enough team that I will have time to really get some chemistry homework done. Why didn't I already take Chemistry? I'm a nurse, am I not? Shouldn't this have already been required of me before pursuing a higher degree? Yuck. Laziness + Undiagnosed math learning disability = me putting off the entire class until I only have three weeks left to finish it all. I'm awesome under pressure, though. I'll get 'er done.

I have NINE work days left until vacation. We're going to Colorado, but because I happen to be a much bigger nerd than I let on I am making Patrick take me through the northern states mainly so I can see Mt. Rushmore. And because I feel sure there's tons of fun shit to do in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Right? So I am excited to get these next couple weeks out of the way. Of course, after we get back I won't have anything fun and exciting to count down to and I'll go back to dreading going into work every night. I need to plan at least a mini-vacation once a month to always keep myself excited!

Hunter just told me he's not my friend anymore and he wishes he didn't live with me because I told him to stop fighting with his sister. One minute he's threatening his own father's well being because he hugged me (because as we all should know, I'm "his girlfriend") and the next he can't stand to look at me. Men... I prefer it when I'm his girlfriend and he loves me... except for those times when he announces that he likes to make out with girls and someone says "Oh really? You're 5, who have you made out with?" and he says "My mom!". Yikes. No more Disney shows geared toward teenagers for him... and yes, I am fully expecting a call from CPS due to his Oedipus complex once he starts school and tells one of his teachers something off the wall like that...

That's all. I guess I should get in gear and get ready for work. If only I could get this vicious beast of a puppy to stop snoring on my leg and let me get something productive done...

So this is my first foray into “real” blogging. I was inspired by my friend, Lea, over at http://rolandbaby.blogspot.com so everyone go check her and her sweet baby out! I suppose I should start off by introducing myself to anyone who might not know me. My name is Amanda. I am the mother of two hilarious kids (a 6 year old girl and a 5 year old boy) and they will frequently be the topic of my postings because they are, as I said, hilarious. I also play mommy to a pug puppy named Griffin – but we will get into her a little later because she caused me lots of stress today. I’ve been married to my wonderful and understanding husband for 5 and a half years. I’m a Registered Nurse. And I’m a little crazy. You’ll see.

A lot of you are probably wondering what’s up with my blog URL. I believe that “I’m not your friend anymore!” is among my kids’ favorite phrases. They say it to me, they say it to eachother, they say it to their friends (or non-friends, I guess). It’s one of those things that you just kind of get used to and learn to zone out as a mom. “Mommy, I’m not your friend anymore!”… “okay, greeeeat… I love you too sweetheart”… That’s how it goes.

So my family has a dog. We bought her two months ago. Historically, I’m not a dog person. It all began when my best friend’s dog bit me right in the ass when I was in 8th grade. Granted, my ass is and always was an easy target; it still wasn’t a fun experience for me. I finally fell in love with pugs. I begged for one for months. Patrick finally gave in so we bought a female puppy and brought her home and I fell in love… and then she started pooping all over my floor. I worked up the nerve over a few weeks and listed her for sale online. I got TONS of emails about her and decided on a girl who lived on a 5 acre farm 40 minutes away. She came to pick her up today at 3pm and all was suddenly well with the world. Or… not at all. I immediately burst into tears and proceeded to cry on the couch for an hour until I finally decided to do something crazy and email the girl and BEG for her back. Hours passed and I got more and more depressed and then – out of nowhere – she responded that she’d bring her back to me. So now she’s home again and I feel complete. All my babies are under one roof again. Also, I now believe that I have borderline personality disorder more than I ever believed it before. I mean, seriously? Who does that? Poor 5 acre farm girl… sorry!

Like I said, my husband is very understanding. I met him at the door on my way back to the bank with my makeup streaked all over my face and he just kind of shrugged and went on about his business. So now all three of my babies are asleep and I’m having a margarita (of course I am) and all really is well with the world. And that’s me. I expect for this blog to be mainly about my kids as they give me lots of things to talk about. It’s bound to be interesting.

Oh, and did anyone else know that Miley Cyrus did a cover of ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’? I kind of like it, I’m not gonna lie…