Gibson Hair Salon ala Max

So.. I know it's been forever since I posted anything, but i just couldn't resist on this one. We had a fantastic Thanksgiving in the west valley with my family. On Thanksgiving day, my sister, Nicole gave 9 haircuts to various family members (Ben, Max and I included). So, she started with my nephews and had them take their shirts off and at the end swept up all the hair. That is the set-up for what happened at our house today while i was being an over-achiever and making dinner at 11:00 a.m. Earlier, Max had gotten the scissors out of Ben's office and Bryn had gotten some pens and a stapler and some post-its. I told Max to put the scissors back, because he was done using them. In the crunch-time of my dinner preparations, i turn around and can't process what i'm seeing: blonde locks of hair all over my living room. Bryn, with her shirt off, with the most fantastic haircut i've ever seen a 4-year old boy give and of course, the broom and dust pan to clean up, because they're on the carpet and it makes sense to sweep up the hair off the carpet, right? i couldn't believe it, her hair was so cute and had curly ends, etc. so...if she was the lead singer in a punk band, her hair would be perfect, unfortunately, she's just a cute 3-year old with a hack-job hairdo. Now, i'm not sure she's going to let anyone trim it up. It does take me back, all the way to being a 4 or 5-year-old. I was supposed to be napping and somehow got ahold of my mom's scissors and proceeded to cut my bangs to the scalp and anything else i could reach. so, my grandma was in town at the time and did her best to clean things up with my hairdo. The next day at church, she was furious to hear that when people asked me who had cut my hair, my response of course, was "Glamma". As Nicole said, it's a childhood rite of passage, so Bryn, when you're old enough to appreciate this, like when your 4-year-old cuts your 3-year-old's hair, you will want to laugh and throttle them at the same time. Just laugh.

4th of July- Welcome to Eagar

We had a great time with everyone that was there. We stayed in tents outside the cabin and got to watch our kids run around like we used to.

Good times with Bree, Kennedy, Ellie and Max

He was pretty excited about the whole thing.

Bryn kept saying we were at the Hooray (instead of parade), it was hilarious.

Here's the whole gang (except Rachelle, the incredibly talented photographer).

Fruit Kabobs

This summer while we were staying in our interim post-trailer, pre-house condo this summer, we had a lot of fun. We went to the Ranch Market and loaded up on fruit and skewers and had a great time.


As you can see, Bryn liked to sample the goods as we go.

What a cutie, and yes, he is where something.

The winning kabob of the day, I think we saved it for Daddy.

Not sure what Max is watching

Today, it was fun and humid and rainy and we went to the park in the middle of August and had a picnic with our new neighbors (not Mr. Fish)...actually, the little girl's name is Izzy, so of course my kids call her Sophie. Anyway, Max comes up to us and says, "When we get home, we're going to get a knife and cut up Bryn and then we'll cook her and eat her and she'll taste just like chicken." Not sure where to go with that one.

Last week, we were driving and Max looks at me and says, "Mom, we don't have any African-Americans in my Primary". Hmm.

To kiss a Fish

I mentioned in my last post our nice neighbors. I thought you all might really like to hear about one of them, Mr. Fish. The day we're moving in, we get a knock on the door and standing there is a very nice, older gentleman who introduces himself as Mr. Fish. Sometime into the conversation, I asked him how old he is and he said, "I don't know, I was born in 1919". So, he lives right across the street and we see him every few days and chat for a minute. On Monday morning, I get up really early and see him walking his poodle. I head out to the Y to go swimming and he walks up to my car to chat. After a little conversation, I'm just wrapping things up and he says, "I need a kiss". Now, anyone that knows my grandpa knows that he was a sloppy lip-kisser, so i have experience with this sort of thing. So he leans into my car and kisses me on the lips. Then...he says, "I need another one"... now, i do have standards, of course, so I graciously decline and he say, "Just one?" Yep, just one, but i'm here anxiously awaiting the next one.

FInally settled...

So, let me take everyone back to the beginning of June. Still thoroughly enjoying trailer park life and just hoping to stay there forever, we make an offer on a house in Mesa and shocker...the bank accepts our offer. It's a fixer off of Alma School and the 202 and we are totally excited to be heading back to the Eastside. We make the offer on Monday and the bank accepts that same day. I also find out that Max gets into a preschool that I'm really excited about that is in Mesa. So, Tuesday, I'm outside in the driveway letting the kids ride their bikes in the street and a lady walks by with her daughter. We start talking about life in the trailer park and how much we love it and I mention that we'd gotten a house in Mesa and we'd need to sell the trailer. (We hadn't told anyone we were selling yet). I say that we could carry the note and she mentions that her sister might be interested. I think, great...and an hour later her sister and sister's husband show up, love it (who wouldn't, did I mention it's a trailer?) and SOLD. They're about to have their first baby, so we say we'll be out beginning of July. Our house is closing July 17th and has about a month's worth of fix-up, so I go on VRBO and find a great little condo right by my old apartment on Mesa Drive and Brown. Things are going great, all the furniture is in a POD waiting to be unloaded and July 10th, our lender calls...you don't qualify for the house. WOW. Well, apparently, when they looked at Ben's corporate taxes, they didn't like that he lost money last year (i bet they didn't make any money, but it's not my place to say, right?)...So, we start scrambling, I ask some friends to carry the note and that doesn't work out, so I say, what can you do? We figure the house isn't the right thing for us. So, we start looking for rentals and find this cool old house off of university and stapley that looks and feels just like grandma's house (down to the drapes, countertops and appliances). It has a mother-in-law type set-up, so Ben has an office and we have a toyroom totally separate from the house. It takes the property management a week to tell us if we have the place and finally we move in. That was July 28th and we are happy and settled and have a big backyard and nice neighbors and are just glad to be alive!!

The Trailer Chronicles

There is nothing like the spin cycle in a home that can be transported to another location. It's like 4.7 on the Richter scale and it's the whole house. I was in my bathroom the other day and had some laundry going and heard the sound of running water a little more than normal. I bolted all the way across the trailer (sense my sarcasm?) into the kitchen to find water POURING out from under my washer. Much to my chagrin, it was running very rapidly straight into my air conditioning vents. If you've never been in a trailer, the heating and cooling comes from little vents in the floor that you have to make sure not to cover up with furniture, or children's clothing tossed to the side. I grabbed all of the towels I could find just to stop the waterfall and waited for my knight-in-shining-armor-otherwise-known-as-a-contractor-with-tools to come home and fix the problem. no big deal. except that i then noticed that there was now standing water, not just in the kitchen vent, but in all of the vents in the whole, big, huge house. i thought we would all be electrocuted, ben's solution, run the A/C, it'll dry it out. who knew?
So, the other problem is that trailer exterior walls are made with 1x1's or something, cuz they're really thin, so it doesn't do a great job holding in the cool air and keeping the hot air out (it's been over a hundred every day for a week). Ben's solution: in true trailer trash fashion, yep, you guessed it, foil taped on the windows. wow, how low can you go?