Out of Africa Trip

We took a trip to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park on May 6th (yes, I am that far behind on my posts).

Doesn't Matt look like his dad?

We conned invited Matt’s parents to spend the day with us. Truly, the kids are still talking about this trip. It was so amazing!
We started off on the Serengeti tour. It was a 45 minute Safari-like tour that felt like it lasted only 15 minutes. Each of us got a carrot when we boarded the bus. The tour guide drove the bus through the “Serengeti” where we got a personal introduction to Humphrey the camel, and the giraffe (can’t remember the poor guys name) who gave Matt a gentle slobbery, wet kiss. Awesome!
After the Serengeti tour we hopped on a trolley. The trolley took us on a tour of the Wildlife Preserve. We saw lions, tigers, wolves, hyenas, Boom-Boom the rhinoceros, a crocodile, grizzly bears and so many more critters. We got off the trolley at the lions habitat and walked the rest of the way at our leisure.

Matt wants the lions job...

The only disappointing part of our day was the meal we paid 46 bucks for (so NOT in our budget). I would highly recommend taking your own lunch or a 2nd mortgage.
Fortunately, we ended our day on a high from the Tiger Splash. We watched 2 tigers romp and play in the pool with their caretakers. It was so exciting even the kids sat still. Simply amazing…the sitting still part.
We needed another couple of hours to finish seeing the rest of the habitats but the kids were tuckered out after Tiger Splash so we took the trolley back to the entrance and headed for home.
It is a day I will treasure forever. Experiencing the wonder and excitement of two of the sweetest little chinobillies I know was so worth it. I’m tellin’ you it’s exactly the ideal place for two or four or six young whippersnappers to spend a day. So please, I beg of you; make the time to load the fam in the car and spend the day together ~ just pack your own lunch!

This is not a paid advertisement. Out of Africa Wildlife park has never heard of me. Out of Africa Wildlife park doesn’t even know I exist, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. I’m a nobody to Out of Africa Wildlife park —just another fool that paid $46.00 for a sorry PB & J lunch. But dang we had a great day!

Memorial Day

As many of you know I come from a military family and I am very, very proud of that fact. I'm also blessed that the Lord brought each of my loved ones home and I know I am very lucky for that. I had been working on a Memorial Day post of my own for Monday but I believe my Aunt Helen did a much better job than I ever could. So please take a minute to visit her blog by clicking on the link and please join my family in the remembrance of those fallen in service to our country. Let's not take this day for granted!
THANK YOU VETERANS!
A Proud To Be An American Chinobilly

Humphrey

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that nose is a camel's nose. Humphrey the camel's nose to be exact! Thanks for playing my 3 faithful blog readers! I'll have a scrapbook page about our recent adventure to post soon.

Nighty night!

Hmmm...

Coming soon to a Chinobilly blog near you....

Daddy's Girls

My family is the most important thing in the world to me. Since I was a little girl I had wanted to be a mom, and I am so grateful to have married someone who is just as passionate about being a good father to our children. This layout shows a "normal" evening at the chinobilly house but also a precious, tender moment that I am grateful has been captured forever. What a sweet thing it is to see my husband so lovingly holding my baby girls knowing that he will love them protect them and do anything in the world for them. There really is nothing in the world like a daddy's love for his little girls.

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe: Part 3

GOT DIRT?

There is nothing more reviving to a chinobilly as the smell of dirt.

And nothing brightened my day quite like running to the chinobilly greenhouse in the peacefulness of a spring morning to see if there is a wisp of green shoving its way out of the dark loamy soil. I needed the smell of dirt. Our neighbors started pulling their shades closed but I ignored that. Although, you have to admit that the sight of a grown, half dressed, wild haired woman huffing dirt has got to be unnerving to most people. Maybe this would explain why we currently don’t have any neighbors on either side of us…hmm...interesting.

Anyway if there's one thing I love about my garden, it's digging in it. It smells so rich, so life-giving, so...so much like bacteria?

No way! Waaaay.

Some of you smarty pants might know that the smell of dirt is not in fact the smell of dirt at all but a bacteria which produces a chemical which in turn is what we think of as “ahhh this smells like dirt”. *snoring Actually, the bacteria produces that smell when it is dying. In wet soil, it can’t breath and it suffocates. And that absolutely lovely smell of “dirt’ is the smell of dead bacteria. See mom and dad I really did pay attention in school!

Humans, and apparently all animals, are very sensitive to this smell. God programmed us to be attracted to the smell to indicate there is water nearby. Very handy for our ancestors that got stuck in the desert without a camel. Ha! It’s a symbiotic relationship really. We find water and the remaining living bacteria get a free ride out of a death trap on our boots to a new location where, hopefully, they will not die. Not a bad deal.

Of course now that you know this you'll probably stop reading my blog all together but for those of you who decided, for whatever reason to stick it out, it puts a whole new spin on my chinobilly garden. It is not a nursery for new seedlings now it’s a mass graveyard for bacteria! Lovely. Sometimes I can be a real killjoy…I know.

Oh well…it is the smell I will come to take for granted round about June, so use to it that it will be as normal as the smell of oxygen and horse poop (at least here in my little corner of the world). But right now, the smell is pure heaven and I’m off to weed my garden.

Happy trails!
The crazy bacteria huffin’ chinobilly!

25 Random Things

1. I have learned to function on very little sleep since becoming a mother.
2. I love chocolate and rum and believe God DID invent them to make me happy.
3. I’m a Supernanny, Survivor and Extreme Home Makeover addict.
4. I freak if someone touches my knees.
5. Since adopting the girls, pink is my new favorite color.
6. Sometimes I just need a good cry so I pull out my chick flicks collection and let it out.
7. My favorite book is the Bible.
8. My favorite book of the Bible is James.
9. I love baseball.
10. I really, really really love to soak in a hot bath but I don't get to much anymore.
11. I had a crush on my husband in high school; he didn’t even know I existed.
12. I hated high school.
13. My dream of swimming with the dolphins came true 2 months before the twins were born.
14. I’m a scrapbook junkie.
15. I love cookie dough and brownie batter.
16. The Amish intrigue me.
17. I’m a worry wart.
18. Ice cream hurts my teeth.
19. Peter Piper Pizza seriously stresses me out.
20. The Christian group Third Day is my all time favorite.
21. I love the Anne of Green Gables series.
22. I can’t seem to get to bed before 11:00 anymore.
23. Elaine from Seinfeld dances better than I do.
24. I’m craving a Fuddruckers hamburger right now.
25. I am almost always cold but I wimp out in the heat. Yeah I make sense like that!

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe: Part 2

My fancy-shmancy garden was becoming one of those every weekend kind of projects. Both Matt and I tend to obsess about our projects until they are done. This tendency is great if you don’t have other domestic responsibilities looming about, or pets, or children needing to be raised and fed.

Fortunately, Matt and the girls whipped up the raised vegetable beds in no time. Speaking of the girls. They are great helpers. No really! They fetch things for Matt like the tape measure, drill bits, or screws. They even got to operate the drill with only a little bit of help from daddy. I love to watch the three of them work together while I just stand around under the guise of needing to document this moment for generations to come.

Shh…don’t tell them! I’m living the good life…don’t ruin it for me…

Yahoo! I have vegetable beds. I can now go on living. Someone hand me my seed catalog and check back for part 3 soon.

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe part 1:

Do you remember that gardening journal I said would start? Well, I’m finally getting around to sharing it with you. Do you know what reminded me of the journal I said I would start? I was in my garden doing exactly what I was worried will happen in this post so long ago. I was Weeding dang it!

But that’s ok. I’d rather weed than do laundry.

So I'll begin with the garden fence.

Have I ever mentioned I have an AMAZING husband? Have I ever mentioned that he doesn’t do anything halfway? Have I ever mentioned that I love his forearms? I love his forearms!

Uhh were was I?

Oh yea garden fence. When I asked for a garden, I gave Matt a rough sketch of what I'd been dreaming of and he outdid himself! He gave me a fancy-shmancy garden that every chinobilly within a hundred miles is envious of!

Hopefully you enjoyed the photos of the garden fence Matt put together for us. I am blessed beyond measure.

Greetings from the pig pen

Wow! It’s been a looong time hasn’t it? I’ve been missing you.
Forgive the absence! But real life happens, right? So in real life, I’ve been running around attending to one million and one things all crying out my name at the same time but not getting a darn thing accomplished.
Has anyone else ever felt this way?....Crickets chirping…
So. Lots of reasons why I hope you’ll forgive the long absence, but I won’t bore you with all the details. In a nutshell, this is what kept me away from my blog porch these past weeks:
*Dealing with computer issues: I’m convinced I contracted a rare case of the computer piggy flu from my new computer (I got a new computer for my birthday). Why would I think such a thing you ask?
1. My new computer was assembled in Mexico.
2. My new computer kept rejecting my password which made me want to puke.
3. I was aching about not being able to access my scrapbooking programs.
4. I had trouble breathing *read I was freaking out so much so that I turned blue.
5. I was extremely fatigued/tired *read I stayed up waaay too late trying to figure out why it wouldn’t work.
6. The new computer ended up in quarantine at a remote site, called my friend's husband's office, for a while.
This left me without use of a computer for almost 2 very long weeks. Not good my bloggy friends, not good. I even received phone calls from concerned friends and family wondering if I had died or something because they had not heard from me. Seriously! It's probably a sign that I spend too much time parked in front of the computer and not doing my job as a wife, mother, keeper of the home (refer to blog title).
*Starting a crash course in time management/self discipline/homemaking to answer the lifestyle changes required by the computer emergencies (see above). Uhm. I have to confess: when God was distributing the aforementioned time management/self discipline/homemaking skills, I was way over on the opposite side, lined up in the Digital Scrapbook Addiction area.
*Working on the chinobilly garden…planting, watering, weeding, removing Oliver, removing children, REplanting, watering, weeding, removing Oliver, removing children…repeat every 4-6 hours as needed.
Phew! That’s all for today, folks! More updates soon. Gotta get back to the saltmines!
((((hugs)))) to you!

Oh-By the way. Happy 13th Anniversary Sweety Peachy! I love you babe!