We arrived at my mom and dad’s house last Saturday evening. When night fell, my mom got very excited, she could see “the light”. Apparently, she has been seeing an ominus light out the window for the past 2 weeks or so (she neglected to mention this Mother’s Day weekend when we were home). She thought it could be a plane or a helicopter, but ruled both of them out. She called the neighbors and had them look for the light. They didn’t see it. She even had Jan look for cellphone towers while driving out that direction. The light freaked her out so much she started to pull the shades in her bedroom at night, and double check that the doors were locked.

Imagine mom’s excitement when she had an audience for the mystery light’s reappearance! She called Mark and Jan to look at it. She sent my sister and I outside to look at it. And, I took a picture of it. 

Wow.

Mom claimed that it usually looked more like this.

Or this.

My dad took one look at it and said “oh, it’s Jupiter”

Then Jan called and set us all straight, it was Venus.

Didn’t stop Mom from pulling the shades and locking the door.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time at Grandpa and Grandma’s house lately. Things are a little…. different there. The kids do lots of things they don’t do at home.

At Grandpa and Grandma’s house, everyone has their own set of wheels….

At Grandpa and Grandma’s house, we don’t eat the healthiest food….

We go to the hardware store for entertainment….

We run around outside…. (ok, we do this at home too, but there’s more space there)

Jump on beds….

And Rex naps. A Lot.

Every once in a while, Ruby and Cash rest. For one minute.

Pretty sure Grandpa and Grandma are still resting after our latest visit!

lindsay**

Ross and I had a plan for this trip up north. We were going to go morel mushroom hunting. We thought the woods by my mom and dad’s house would be perfect mushroom territory. Ross decided that I wouldn’t be able to protect him from wild animals in the woods, so he begged Grandpa to come with.

We each had our handmade walking sticks to prod the brush with. It didn’t take long before my dad was shouting that he had found one.

Fortunately, I was able to Google and show him what a morel really looked like.

We continued to poke around and work our way up to a pond in the woods.

We saw lots and lots of mushrooms, just not the right kind.

The bright spot was wandering into my Grandma’s asparagus patch. Totally made the hike worth it!

(while eating our asparagus for lunch, both my dad and I confessed that we didn’t poke around too much for mushrooms, because we were afraid a snake would slither out)

After last month’s karate graduation fail, Cash had a better attitude (and a longer nap) this time!  He was pumped!

Daddy had to give a little speech to all the graduates to make sure that they did the best they could.  I think Cash is in the process of saying “Yes, Sir!”

Cash was lined up and ready to demonstrate all of his karate moves!

He got to perform one of the moves all by himself!

If you didn’t catch it, he made sure that everyone knew that he is still only 2 and not 3 yet! 

And then it was time to get his belt!!

We need to work on the art of shaking hands…but he was so excited to show me his belt certificate he forgot about everyone else!

Before we left, he had to pose with his instructors (cousin Nick, Daddy and Mr. Dalton).  Huge muscles! 

So Cash is now a Double Gold Stripe (whatever that means).

-lindsay**

Have I ever mentioned that Ross is a YouTube addict? Actually, he and Jeff like to hang out and watch stupid videos together. Unfortunately, they only chose stupid yet catchy videos to watch. Like this one:

See how catchy it is?

Chris has been trying to teach Cash how to spell his name…and somehow it turned into working on saying ‘okey dokey’ and ‘uh oh spaghettiOs’. 
This makes me and Cash laugh. 

I really lack hobbies. I will admit that I love to start hobbies, but have problems finishing them- knitting, crocheting, sewing, cheesemaking, etc. So, when I saw trap shooting listed as a community ed class, I thought it would be fun to try. My friend Julie signed up to take it, so I joined her. For some reason, it didn’t hit me until I got to the gun club- what on earth was I thinking? I’m not a hunter/shooter/fishing type person. I’m pretty sure I haven’t touched a gun since firearms safety in 6th grade. I got pretty nervous even thinking about picking up a shotgun. Luckily, the 15 year old Jr instructor took me under his wing and calmer me down…. a little. Once we got out to the range, it hardly mattered since the mandatory earplugs seemed to block out my nerves too.
I will admit that Julie looked much more natural than I did.

She was also a much better shot than I was.

So, despite my nerves and mini panic attack, it was a fun night. Next week we get to compete against each other. Hopefully, I’ll do a better job “mounting” my gun next week, so I don’t look like this.

Ouch.

When did my baby turn into a dude?

I just want him to slow down a little bit!

I left my tennis shoes at my mom and dad’s house last time I was home and decided that I missed them so it seemed like a really good excuse to get new ones.  So…I took my kid shoe shopping.  It took us each about 30 seconds to decide on the pairs that we wanted. 

Surprise.  Cash found Spiderman shoes.

He loves them so much that he decided that he had to take a nap in them. 

And that he had to sit in his favorite chair and talk about animals with me in them.

And that he needed to wear them while watching a movie.

Oh, and this kid loves his shoes so much that they had to sleep in his bed.

We’re on day 2 of the new shoes and he wore them all day again.  I convinced him that they could sleep on his floor instead of in his bed since they got a little dirty today.  Wonder how long this will last….

-lindsay**