What a week!

It's so funny to me that people in the Ozarks get SOOO crazy when we have a little ice and a LITTLE snow. This week we had a some accumulation, but NOTHING compared to our friends up north, and this only happens maybe once or twice a year at most. But everyone freaks out, drives crazy, etc. It was pretty, but now most of it is melting away. The kids had fun watching the snow on Tuesday night! Tatum has been out of school for three days, so she spent one of those with me (we had a girls day) and she is at Dalton's school today.

I HAVE to post a picture of the opossum. It, he, she whatever it was, was spotted on the top of the garage door opener, how it got there, who knows. In the flower pots and finally on Sunday night at about 11:00, we heard something in the garage. The door was closed so we knew it was in there. After about 30 minutes of looking EVERYWHERE, I had a flashback to a cat we had growing up taking a ride in the engine of my mom's totally awesome 1978 Monte Carlo (might have been older, not sure), and I said, I BET IT'S UNDER THE HOOD OF THE CAR!!! Sure enough Dan popped the hood and there it sat hissing at us. Dan took a broom and starts hitting it in the head, that just makes it mad and hurts it and it hides down in the engine where we can't get to it. Fast forward about an hour and a half. We gave up and went to bed. The next morning, it was still there, so Dan drove the car to school and then to work and when he got there the opossum was STILL in there. So he called animal control and this tiny little girl shows up and just reaches down and grabs Happy Gilmore by the tail and that was that. She drove him off to a far away place, hopefully NO WHERE NEAR Ozark.

So now we are opossum free. Tatum was concerned he had a brother or a girlfriend, but we reassured her that probably wasn't the case.

I am just ready for the weekend. Aren't we all? No events this weekend, just hanging out. Hope wherever you are, you are staying warm!!!!

I promise to put a picture of the rodent up soon :)

THIS....IS......WAR

I don't even know where to start. This evil little fat opossum just decided to move in to the Rice garage. I don't know how this thing keeps getting in and where it hides, but there it was again last night. I went after it with a broom but I am afraid it's going to turn and attack me. I have already had a couple dreams about this. On the way to work this morning after I dropped off Tatum I had a box in the passenger seat with a bottle in it for work, and as I was driving 'something' was bouncing in there and I thought "HOW DID THIS OPOSSUM GET IN HERE?" I stopped the car, and sat there and flipped the top open only to find a bottle, but that is how paranoid I am.

SO Dan went to Home Depot to get 'death of a opossum' in a bottle but turns out they don't make that, so now I am not sure what we are going to do. This is like the James Bond of opossums. I think of the Mission Impossible music and this ugly thing making a break for it. It ACTUALLY is moving our stuff around. So great, I have a very gutsy, gross opossum who also has OCD and is rearranging things on our shelves outside.

OH! And I forgot when I got home last night, one of my flower pots was SHATTERED on the garage floor. Our little circus freak must have been climbing up pretty high and knocked it over. It was on the very top shelf. It also knocked over the kids' box of sidewalk chalk.

This is war, and I am going to win. Tonight begins operation KILL THIS OPOSSUM. I'm wearing camo and everything. I might even drink a beer and bring out my gun, except I don't have any beer OR a gun. Either way, this OPOSSUM is GOING DOWN.

Unsolved Mysteries

I am a big fan of most of God's creatures, but there is something about opossums that are just gross. Their tails are weird, they hiss, yuck. Last night I had left the garage door open after we got home from work and I went out to get something out of the car and when I opened the door shaggy the homeless opossum casually looks up at me from drinking out of a bowl in the garage; like 'what?' I slam the door, get the chills and tell Dan there is THE BIGGEST opossum in our garage and I think it was about ready to attack. Maybe that is a little dramatic, but it was about 5 times bigger than Buttons!!!!

So the thing runs over to the shelves and Dan (with broom), tries to go over and get 'it' out, but has to pull the car out first, so he crawls through the passenger door (my suggestion) so that the bearlike opossum doesn't attack his legs, etc. Once the car is out, I get a better view of our little friend. He is stuck and he tries to escape but falls and his legs and ugly tail are dangling in the air.

Right about now it hits Dan and he says, "THIS explains everything!"

What?

The last couple of days when Dan got home from work his shoes and boots were moved from the shelf to the garage floor and the bird seed was all over..........so it wasn't Lindsay doing it after all it was the INTRUDER!!!!!!

I also didn't look under my car this morning with a flashlight just in case, if that's what you were asking.

Happy Obama Day!

Mardi Gras--well not quite

I don't have much time, but wanted to post a pic of Dan and I from the weekend. Now don't go getting all jealous my friends, this picture was taken in a small town for an event that we had to WORK. The theme was Mardi Gras and I thought we looked kinda cute.

The work day is almost done!!

Happy MLK Day

History really is an amazing thing, and today our nation celebrates a very powerful leader. Tatum brought home a little flip chart she had made at school honoring Dr. King, and it was really cool to hear her talk about all the things she is learning. Tatum's school is closed today, so she is at The Learning Center with Dalton, mom and dad have to work of course.

This weekend seemed FAR too short. I had an event in Monett, so Dan and I met my mom in Mt. Vernon so she could take the short people back with her and we headed on down to work the event for the night. Got home late, stayed up and watched SNL and (we are not proud of this), made a CPK bbq chicken pizza....

Yesterday we were up early to head down to Joplin for church and then to Grandma's house for lunch. It's always good to see everyone. This time we brought Buttons and she loved it. We got back and did our thing, ate leftover spaghetti and I did facebook stuff when the kids went to bed. I am addicted, it's ridiculous. So far, it's mostly people from high school.

I need to get going, it's a busy Monday already. If you are lucky enough to have the day off, Enjoy it!

Peter Pan

I have had 3 people just today remind me of the fact that I am turning 30 this year. You know, I was saying my knees hurt (almost 30), I'm breaking out (almost 30), my eyes are puffy (almost 30).....that has been the joke around here lately. The cool thing is, everyone I have talked to (women), have said for the most part their 30's were better than their 20's. As long as I look good, and I am healthy then I probably won't wake up on February 26th (30) much different then I did the day before (29).

Back to work for me, we have two events the next two Saturdays, and it's busy around here.

Happy Hump Day

Two for Tuesday

Buttons. I love her. She is funny and so sweet. She thinks that there is another doggie that lives in our closet, interestingly this 'other dog' looks just like her. She is NOT happy that we have another dog in the closet, a.k.a. A MIRROR.

She decided to punish me and poop on the floor of our bedroom. One for Tuesday.

I am just finishing getting ready for work and I hear "OH BUTTONS, THAT IS NOT A GREAT JOB!!! SHE POOPED AGAIN MOMMY!!" Two for Tuesday.

I have a pile of work on my desk that is yelling at me, so I must go for now. Stay Warm!! :)

Post two

Tonight has been a fun night of science 'inspections' or also known as 'experiments.' The kids are having a lot of fun making projects and bringing them in for us to see. Mostly it's Tatum as the creator and Dalton as the deliverer of the items :)

The kids are also obsessed with the movie "The Phantom of the Opera." We have been singing all the songs and they LOVE IT!!!! They must take after their mom's love of all things theatre.

It's my first post on our blog! This will be fun sharing with all our friends what is new in our lives. Things are busy as usual with two kids, a dog, jobs and everything else in between. The holidays were nice, but we are settling back into our schedule. Tatum is in kindergarten at Ozark West Elementary and just got her 2nd progress report on Friday and she is very advanced! She loves to read and write and is such a little artist. Dalton is going great in the Sunshine class here at Cox too. This week Tatum is the 'star student' in her class and she was so excited to take pictures and some of her favorite toys and books to her kindergarten class to share.

Dan is busy at the firm and is teaching another online course at Drury this semester. I too will be doing some teaching at OTC off and on, so that is fun. I am pretty busy at Cox right now. Lots of projects going on.

I hope you are having a good week so far!!