Mud Racin'

Yesterday, we decided to go check out a 4x4 Mud Racing competition in Winnabow. We got there at about 3pm and it was HOT. It must have been in the 90's. There were two mud pits that were about 200 feet long and there were several categories of trucks that competed. The street-legal trucks would really struggle to get anywhere up to 70 feet across the pits. When one of the trucks only made it 28 feet, the announcer said, "That's all I have to say about that".



Then there were some serious competitors whose cars were obviously built to handle knee-deep mud--you know, in case there's a mud slide on the freeway or something. These cars could make it across the pits in as little as 5 seconds.

Andy and I were entertained--we stayed for a full 3 hours, but it looked like the entertainment would be going on for several more hours. It was an impressive display of testosterone. Besides, it's always fun to watch cars get stuck in the mud and have to be pulled out by a huge John Deere tractor--as long as it's not YOUR car.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the day was to think of how little people seem to care about the high price of gas. I guess it doesn't matter as long as the gas is being put to "good" use.

Toward the end of our adventure, as more and more high school kids showed up, this kid's shirt just said it all. (Redneck Nightmare)

Blueberry Festival

Last Saturday, after a morning of cleaning, exercising and lots of rain, we went to the Burgaw Blueberry Festival. I know what you're thinking, and yes, we have finally arrived. Burgaw is about 20 minutes north of us. Fortunately, it did stop raining just before we left. Burgaw is a classic, small North Carolina town with more antique stores per capita than should be legally allowed.
Everyone came out to celebrate the blueberry harvesting season. They had lots of booths set up and we were a little disappointed that they did not all have something to do with blueberries. It was fun, however, to see the various vendors--especially the ones selling ceramics peices. I'm trying to get more ideas for the coming months. So aside from a handful of booths that had blueberry-inspired snacks (like smoothies, ice cream, jams, cobbler, cakes etc.) it was your average, small-town fair. Either way, it was fun to walk around and see all the crafts and yummy treats that were for sale. We tried a blueberry smoothie, some homemade ice cream and a blueberry funnel cake! YUM! I really wish funnel cakes didn't taste so good...rather, I really wish funnel cakes were good for you. Throughout the day, we kept thinking how much Andy's nephew, Evan, would have loved to have been there. He is a blueberry fiend!!! On top of that, they had an area where several grown men had set up their electric train sets--complete with villages etc. Evan would have loved it!

Tag. I'm it.

The rules are NO CLEANING/CHEATING. What you see is the real thing. So here we go...

#1 The fridge... I'm surprised there is no Orange Juice in there right now. Andy loves his OJ.

#2 The kitchen sink...If given the choice, don't ever get a white sink. They stain like crazy and are too high maintenance.

#3 The toilet...in all it's glory.

#4 My bed...hastily made. It doesn't get made every day, but I try.

#5 My closet...mmmm...cavernous. Andy was a real gent and volunteered to take the small closet in the master bedroom. I heart my closet.

#6 Self portrait...just got out of the shower.

#7 Favorite shoes...boots of sass! Not only do these shoes make me feel like a superhero, but they are wide width and are rather comfortable. I'm one of the few women in America who HATES shoe shopping. About a month ago, Andy told me to go buy some shoes to replace a pair that was getting rather grungy....and I still haven't done it. Cute shoes don't fit because I have wide feet and when I, in a moment of weakness, buy a cute pair of "normal" shoes, I regret it and my feet hate me.

#8 What my kids are doing right now...hanging out in my tummy, I guess...? Not that that's any kind of announcement. I couldn't photograph Emma--I have no idea what she's doing right now.

#9 A place I would love to go on vacation...I'm good in the vacation department for now. But who doesn't want to go to Bora Bora. Growing up in Hawaii has ruined me for life. I will always be happy in the tropics.

Friends I want to do this blog challenge...Andrew and Amy, Paula, David and Logan, Shelley, Stephen (like that will happen), Kimberly, Dan and Holly, Anne, Heather, and whoever else wants to participate in the fun...Remember NO cleaning before you take the pictures (it is what it is), NO cheating, have fun.

Andy thinks too much

This is Andy making a rare appearance - I recently tried to sweep the garage floor and could not get it clean. After a closer look I realized that something was stuck to the floor. When they poured the concrete they must have sprinkled little fibers on the top for some reason. I tried to take the above pictures but they did not come out very good being up so close. The challenge is this - why are there fibers stuck in the concrete of my garage floor? And should I remove the fibers, and if so - how? My idea is to either run a torch slowly over the floor or poor gasoline, light a match, and smile - either way, harness nature's power for my means.

Help!

In response to Andy's post about lighting our garage floor on fire, please help me by discouraging him. I tried calling Stephen who, I thought, would be on my side since he recently graduated from fire school. But all he had to say was that he had just finished a shift at the station and was bored from the lack of excitement so on behalf of all the bored firefighters out there, he wanted Andy to go ahead and set the garage on fire. Boooo. I'm hereby calling in reinforcements! Don't do it Andy!

Casual Attire

So you might be asking yourself why this picture is on the blog. It looks like typical weekend attire - but no - this is what I wore to work one day this last week. It took me three weeks to dress down to the normal start up company attire - but it felt good to wear shorts to work for the first time in my adult life. Shorts are typical and I am not sure if a few of the guys even own socks. Not only is it a young start up casual company culture, but a boating and beach community as well. It is a pleasant change from the business attire at my last job. I hope some of my friends at William Lyon Homes read this entry.

So Crafty

We had a really fun Enrichment activity last week. There's a lady in our ward who started an online scrap booking business a few years ago. Her mom happens to be the RS President. This past week, we had an Enrichment activity in which we learned how to make the most adorable photo albums. They only cost $2, so I took advantage of the low cost and bought three to work on. The first one I completed was a "Baby" scrap book for Andy's cousin's wife who is pregnant with a baby girl. We were sad to leave Orange County and miss her baby shower etc. Anywhooo...Here's a pic of the one I made for her:
I also just finished a "Beach" photo album before Father's Day. I am hoping that it will help remind Emma of all the fun times we have together. She loves going to the beach and the beaches here are really quite nice.

Happy Father's Day!

We had a nice Father's Day today. There was a special Stake Conference to put a new Stake Presidency in place. We don't know the new stake president, but one of his counselors is our bishop. Both of the counselors in our bishopric are relatively young, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

We also have been able to visit with Emma this weekend. She came over on Friday, spent the night, and came over for part of Saturday and Sunday. We did several activities like letter boxing (check out www.letterboxing.org for more info), she and Andy put up a tent, we saw Kung Fu Panda (very funny movie --I highly recommend it) and we made cookies today and took them to our neighbors. They really appreciated the cookies and were so impressed with Emma's cookie-decorating prowess.


For Father's Day, she got Andy a garden gnome. Which is just what our garden needs! Andy really is such a great father. He is so patient with Emma and is so good at coming up with fun activities to do with her. She is lucky to have him as a dad.

The Truth Hurts

Someone sent me the following gas-related comics. I thought they were pretty accurate. I am very glad that I get to work from home and don't have to deal with the pump as often as most people do. I am also very grateful that the Sam's Club near us has a gas station and I can at least feel like I'm getting a good deal while gas prices are hovering at $4 per gallon. Somehow, the reality of high gas prices makes these comics less funny.

Mini Beehives

I officially have a new church calling. I am the new Activities Day Leader. For those not familiar with our church, I will be responsible for planning and carrying out semimonthly activities for girls ages 8 to 11. My previous calling was to teach the Mia Maids (girls ages 14 to 16) and while we did have weekly activities, I was not in charge of them. The lady who was in charge of planning our activities was like MacGyver! She could effortlessly entertain the girls by showing them how to make a centerpiece from a toothpick, a paperclip and a roll of toilet paper. I'm pretty apprehensive. I'm not sure how I'm going to come up with enough activities to entertain the girls month after month. So if anyone out there has any ideas, please please please let me know!! I still don't know a lot of the details (like how many girls there will be or when the fun starts) but something tells me it will be quite the adventure. Wish me luck!

It's a Good Thing...

To steal a phrase from Martha Stewart, I have discovered a very good thing this week. Google Reader. All those who have a Google email account need to try out Google Reader. Basically, you save all the blogs (or other websites) you check on a daily basis and Google tracks them to watch for changes made to the websites. So all I have to do is log in it will tell me if there have been any new entries to any of the blogs I normally spend 10 minutes checking. It's very efficient and it's as simple as checking my email. I highly recommend it. I've already discovered that Melanie has actually made an entry in her blog--which she hasn't maintained for nearly a year (and I stopped checking some time ago). The only problem is that Reader doesn't seem to be able to track private blogs or some blogs that are not on the blogger system. However, it has already proven to be quite the time saver and I'm hoping that I'm not the last person on earth to have discovered Reader and that you will find it useful as well. Enjoy.

Long Over Due....

I have been meaning to post some pictures of the ceramics pieces I made prior to leaving California. I found out that there is a community class here in Wilmington and the next set of classes start in July. I think I will probably sign up for the evening class.












Arick and Bri helped pick the hydrangea in that one vase and I'm surprised at how hardy they are. They have lasted well over a week. My favorite piece is the black donut-looking one. If anyone wants a bowl or something let me know.

Good ole California

So there's something I miss about California. At first you might think I'm nuts for saying this, but I really miss the dry, desert-like climate of the California coast. We rarely got rain (hence the crazy wildfires) and things were often dry and relatively plain looking. HOWEVER, the lack of moisture served as a wonderful repellent. Here in NC, all the rain and thick forests produce tons of bugs!! I am feeling absolutely inundated by BUGS!!! Uggh. In California, the worst "critters" we ever got were ants and daddy long leg spiders. I've been forced to revert to my bug-alert ways of living in tropical climates like Hawaii and Taiwan. Every shadow or tiny movement out of the corner of my eye startles me and ignites a reflex to reach for the Raid. Andy tried to comfort me by telling me that the big ones are just Palmetto Bugs. Well, on Wikipedia, I learned that "Palmetto Bugs" is just another name for the "American Cockroach"!!! I have little to no tolerance for bugs co-existing in my habitat. To me, they're all disease-ridden, dirty creatures that must be destroyed.

I have been itchy almost every day that we have been here. I have had several mosquito bites and bites from "sand fleas" at the beach. Who ever heard of a sand flea!?!? I think 'nature' is going a little too far. Andy thinks all the itching is just in my head, but I can assure you that it is not. I think I am physiologically more prone to bug-induced itchiness than he is.

The first time Andy went out to explore our back yard forest, he came back in to tell me about his adventures and half way through the conversation, he noticed two, count 'em, TWO ticks!! He was only out there for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, they had not burrowed into his skin yet. But I was not entertained. I now spray mosquito/tick/flea repellent on me if I know I'm going to be outdoors for more than 5 minutes.

When Andrew and Amy were here, they clued us in to a very important aspect of southern living: insecticide barriers. In fact, Andrew went out and bought us a big ole jug of bug spray. Andy dutifully sprayed it around the house both inside and out last Saturday. Since then, we have noticed that there have been a few dead or confused bugs that have come out of their hiding places. I have no compassion for these bugs and can only hope that the pesticide barrier does the trick.

This afternoon, I found the following little beast just waiting to doorbell ditch me on our front porch.
Yes, that is a real spider. It looks like a fake Halloween spider. It's like some kind of a baby tarantula or fuzzy piece of gross. It sat in the same spot for several hours and after I made Andy investigate it, he determined that it was dead.

Needless to say, I miss the good life in sunny, dry, less-creepy-crawly California.